Supreme Court allows SC certificate for girl based on caste of mom, not non-SC dad

NEW DELHI: In a rare decision aimed at facilitating the education of a minor girl, Supreme Court on Monday approved issuance of an SC certificate based on the 'Adi Dravida' caste of her mother, who is married to a non-SC person, even though it is yet to adjudicate a bunch of petitions challenging the norm that a child inherits their father's caste.

A bench of CJI Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi refused to entertain a challenge to a Madras HC order directing grant of SC caste certificate to the Puducherry girl on the sole ground that her academic career may suffer without it.

"We are keeping the question of law open," the bench said. However, what the CJI said next could lead to a big debate. He said, "With changing times, why should a caste certificate be not issued based on the mother's caste?" This would mean that children born of the marriage of an SC woman with an upper caste man and brought up in upper-caste family environs would also be entitled to an SC certificate.

The mother had requested the tahsildar to grant SC certificates to her three children - two daughters and a son - based on her caste certificate as her husband had stayed at her parents' house since their marriage. In her application, she had contended that her parents and grandparents belonged to Hindu Adi Dravida community.

The presidential notifications of Mar 5, 1964, and Feb 17, 2002, read with instructions of the Union ministry of home affairs, say that a person's eligibility to get a caste certificate is primarily based on their father's caste as well as his residential status in the state or UT's jurisdiction.SC had earlier held father's caste as decisive factor

In Punit Rai Vs Dinesh Chaudhary [(2003) 8 SCC 204], a case relating to reservation, SC had said that the decisive factor for determination of caste of a person will be the caste of the father as per customary Hindu Law and that in the absence of statutory law, they would inherit their caste from the father and not the mother.

In the 2012 judgment in 'Rameshbhai Dabhai Naika vs Gujarat', a two-judge bench of SC ruled, "The determination of caste of a person born of an inter-caste marriage or a marriage between a tribal and a non-tribal cannot be determined in complete disregard of attending facts of the case." It said, "In an inter-caste marriage or a marriage between a tribal and a non-tribal, there may be a presumption the child has the caste of the father. This presumption may be stronger in the case where in the inter-caste marriage or a marriage between tribal and non-tribal, the husband belongs to a forward caste."

"But by no means is the presumption conclusive or irrebuttable, and it is open to the child of such marriage to lead evidence to show he/she was brought up by the mother who belonged to SC/ST. By virtue of being the son of a forward caste father, he did not have any advantageous start in life but on the contrary suffered the deprivations, indignities, humiliations and handicaps like any other member of the community to which his/her mother belonged. Additionally, he was always treated as a member of the community to which her mother belonged not only by that community but by people outside the community as well," it said.
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