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The Supreme Court on Tuesday, March 24, upheld an Andhra Pradesh High Court order holding that a person who has converted to Christianity cannot claim the status of a Scheduled Caste.
A Bench of Justices Prashant Kumar Mishra and NV Anjaria said that “no person who professes a religion other than Hinduism, Sikhism or Buddhism can be regarded as a member of the Scheduled Caste,” adding that conversion to any other religion results in the “immediate and complete loss” of such status.
The order was passed over a case from Andhra Pradesh’s Bapatla district, where a Christian pastor named Chinthada Anand alleged that he was assaulted and abused in the name of his caste by a man named Akkala Ramireddy and others, while conducting a prayer meeting.
Based on Anand’s complaint, police had registered an FIR under the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act. The accused approached the Andhra Pradesh High Court, which quashed the case while ruling that the caste system was alien to Christianity and hence the SC/AT Act cannot be invoked in Anand’s case. Anand had appealed this verdict in the Supreme Court.
Upholding the Andhra Pradesh High Court’s view, the apex court held that the bar under the Constitution (Scheduled Castes) Order, 1950, is “absolute” and admits no exception. The order says that “no person who professes a religion different from the Hindu, the Sikh or the Buddhist religion shall be deemed to be a member of a Scheduled Caste.”
The Justice Mishra-led Bench observed that a person cannot simultaneously profess another religion and claim Scheduled Caste status. In its decision, the Supreme Court noted that the appellant had continued to profess Christianity and had been functioning as a pastor for over a decade, conducting regular Sunday prayers, leaving “no room for doubt” about his religious identity.
“In the present case, it is not the case of the petitioner that he reconverted from Christianity to his original religion or has been accepted back in the folds of the Madiga community. On the contrary, the evidence establishes that the appellant continued to profess Christianity… These concurrent facts leave no room for doubt that he continued to remain a Christian,” the Justice Mishra-led Bench observed.
Earlier, the Andhra Pradesh High Court, in its April 30, 2025, order, had held that a person who had converted to Christianity and was working as a pastor could not invoke protections available to Scheduled Castes under the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act.
The AP High Court had noted that the complainant had been “working as a pastor for the last 10 years” and was conducting regular Sunday prayers, thereby clearly establishing that he was professing Christianity.
It further held that “having converted to Christianity, the petitioner cannot continue to be a member of the Scheduled Caste community,” and consequently could not invoke the provisions of the SC/ST Act, since the caste system is alien to Christianity.
The Andhra Pradesh High Court had also observed that the Constitution (Scheduled Castes) Order, 1950, makes it clear that persons professing religions other than those specified therein cannot be treated as members of the Scheduled Castes.
With IANS inputs