The Supreme Court today upheld the 2012 election of a Congress MLA from Bhadaur Assembly constituency in Punjab which was reserved for the Scheduled Caste in the poll.
A bench, comprising Justices Ranjan Gogoi and P C Pant, set aside the Punjab and Haryana High Court's April 7, 2015 judgment which said that Mohammad Sadique, being a Muslim, could not have contested from the constituency reserved for SC candidates.
Shiromani Akali Dal candidate Darbara Singh Guru had challenged the election of Sadique. Sadique had approached the apex court challenging the High Court verdict.
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"Admittedly, the appellant (Sadique) was born to Muslim parents. However, he has proved that his family members though followed Islam belonged to Doom (SC) community. It is settled in law that a person can change his religion and faith but not the caste, to which he belongs, as caste has linkage to birth.
"It is proved on the record that the appellant was issued a caste certificate as he was found to be member of Doom community by the competent authority after he declared that he has embraced Sikhism and he was accepted by the Sikh community," the bench said.
The apex court noted that Sadique had embraced Sikh religion on April 13, 2006, and a public notice to this effect was also published in newspapers on January 4, 2007.
It also noted that he had got a Scheduled Caste certificate issued by authorities showing him as belonging to the "Doom" community which came under Scheduled Caste category under the Constitution (Scheduled Castes) Order, 1950.
The court further said "it is not essential for anyone to change one's name after embracing a different faith. However, such change in name of can be a corroborating fact regarding conversion or reconversion into a religion/faith in appropriate cases. Also, it is not necessary in law that entire family of a person should convert or reconvert to the religion to which he has gone".
