The Supreme Court on Thursday upheld a Madras high court decision that barred the Tamil Nadu government from providing reservation to those who convert to Islam on the basis of their pre-conversion status. In March 2024, the Tamil Nadu government allowed people converting from Backward Classes, Most Backwards Classes, Denotified Communities, or Scheduled Castes (SCs)to be treated as one of seven Muslim sects that are classified as backward for issuing community certificates .
The Madras high court struck this government order down earlier this year, and the Supreme Court has upheld the high court’s decision.
The classification of castes into categories such as Scheduled Castes (SCs), Scheduled Tribes (STs), or Other Backward Classes (OBCs) is done officially in India. But there is no administrative count of people who can be certified as such, which is what matters for reservation. However, estimates of these groups – individual states may also have categories such as Most Backward Classes (MBCs) – are available from government surveys, where people self-identify their categories. However, government surveys in India so far only ask about spending patterns.
two big surveys – 2019-21 National Family Health Survey (NFHS) and the 2023-24 Household Consumption Expenditure Survey (HCES) – agree on broad trends While the numbers are not exactly the same. The richest 10% MPCE class had a minimum annual per capita spending of ₹ 99,474 in the 2023-24 HCES. That translates to an annual spending of ₹ 397,898 for a family of four, well below the ₹ 8 lakh income threshold set by the central government.
Another thing to keep in mind while reading these numbers is that the “creamy layer” threshold is based on income and not spending.
