Overview
- A division bench of the Madras High Court declared the March 2024 government order unconstitutional and upheld the Tahsildar’s refusal to issue a BCM community certificate to the petitioner.
- The judges said a person who converts to Islam becomes 'only a Muslim' and cannot acquire membership of the seven state‑notified Backward Class Muslim communities by conversion.
- The ruling said the executive cannot use a government order to overturn settled judicial precedent, citing older Madras High Court and Supreme Court decisions that treat community membership for reservation as birth‑based.
- The State had defended the GO as following the Backward Classes Commission’s recommendation to preserve reservation benefits for existing beneficiaries after conversion, but the court found that approach legally and conceptually unsustainable.
- The order names the seven notified BCM groups in Tamil Nadu and frames the decision in the wider context of how reservations are tied to sociological, birth‑based classifications and the separation of powers, a point that could affect future administrative attempts to alter reservation lists.