Merely Displaying Jesus Christ Photo In House Doesn't Mean A Person Has Converted Into Christianity: Bombay High Court Orders Caste Certificate

Merely displaying Jesus Christ’s picture in the house wouldn’t mean a person has converted and become a Christian, the Bombay High Court at Nagpur said while taking strong exception to the Caste Scrutiny Committee’s rejection of a 17-year-old’s ‘Scheduled Caste’ claim.

“No sane man will accept or believe that merely because there is a photograph of Jesus Christ in the house would ipso facto mean that a person had converted himself into Christianity,” Justices Prithviraj Chavan and Urmila Joshi Phalke observed while allowing the petition.

The bench warned the District Caste Certificate Scrutiny Committee (DCCSC) for ignoring pre-constitution public documents of the petitioner belonging to the ‘Mahar’ caste as also all the Buddhist rituals followed by the family for generations.

The petitioner had approached the High Court through her father after the DCCSC on September 22, 2022 invalidated her caste claim as “Mahar”. The petitioner passed her 12th standard examination and also cleared State Common Entrance Test.

She claimed she was from the ‘Mahar’ community, which is recognised as ‘Scheduled Caste’ under the Constitution (Scheduled Castes) Order, 1950. Her claim was invalidated following a vigilance cell report and a subsequent hearing.

The Vigilance Cell report claimed that the father and grandfather of the petitioner had converted themselves and adopted ‘Christianity’ therefore they were included in Other Backward Classes and not Scheduled Caste.

Before the High Court, the Committee claimed the petitioner did belong to the ‘Mahar’ caste but only those who professes the religion Hindu, Sikh and Buddhist belong to the category of Scheduled Caste.

“There is absolutely no shred of evidence on record or material found by the Vigilance Cell during enquiry that either the grandfather, father or the petitioner had undergone Baptism,” the court observed.

The bench noted labour work was the petitioner’s family’s traditional occupation, marriages are performed in the Buddhist style and they celebrated Buddhist festivals. Merely because the officer of the Vigilance Cell noticed a photograph of Lord Jesus Christ, he assumed that the petitioner’s family professes Christian religion, the bench noted.

The court discarded the vigilance report as being a “figment of the officer’s imagination” and accepted the petitioner’s argument that the picture was gifted by someone and kept in the house.

The petitioner’s counsel also relied heavily on the recent judgement of the HC in Priti d/o Ashok Chakranarayan Vs. State of Maharashtra based on identical facts. It was held in the case as well that only because a portrait of Lord Jesus Christ was found at the house of the petitioner, did not mean the petitioner ceased to be a ‘Mahar’ when the claim was substantiated by other documents.

Documents submitted by the petitioner included Caste Certificate issued by the Sub Divisional Officer, her school leaving certificate, her father’s school leaving certificate etc. Her grandfather’s school leaving certificate mentioned ‘Christian.’

However, a copy of the Kotwal Book, a public document issued by the Tahsildar of Amravati showed her great grandfather as belonging to the Mahar community. It also recorded her grandfather’s birth as Mahar.

“What more proof was required to be considered by the Committee who appears to have turned a Nelson’s eye to this glaring document apart from three validity certificates which have already been granted by it in favour of blood relatives of the petitioner?” the court said.

However, while granting the petitioner the caste certificate the court cited a note of caution issued by the High Court in PIL No.102/2013 Narayan Dinbaji Jambule and others Vs. The Scheduled Tribe Certificate Scrutiny Committee, Gadchiroli and others.

“We make it clear that if, in spite of the afore-said directions, if the members of the Committee continue to deny Validity Certificates to the candidates, in spite of there being pre-constitutional documents with them and when there is no material available to contradict their claim, we will be left with no other alternative than to take serious view of the matter”.