Supreme Court of India on Thursday (October 15, 2026) rejected a Tamil Nadu government appeal seeking confirmation of the State’s policy to provide reservation benefits to members of backward classes, most backward classes, de-notified communities and Scheduled Castes to Islam.
A Bench headed by Justice Prashant Kumar Mishra held that a member of a backward Hindu community does not automatically become a member of a notified backward Muslim community merely by going through the act of conversion to Islam.
The court held that a Tamil Nadu government order doing the same creates an “artificial group” which would access benefits of reservation associated with backward communities. Justice Mishra, who read out the operative portion of the judgment, said the government’s notification of a community as backward for granting them benefits should be preceded by statutory social checks.
