The Madras High Court in Tamil Nadu ruled that a Christian woman claiming Scheduled Caste (SC) status committed fraud under the Constitution. Because of this, she was disqualified from serving as chairperson of a town panchayat.
V Amutha Rani was elected in 2022 to a post reserved for Scheduled Castes in Theroor, Kanyakumari district, as a candidate of the AIADMK party. She was born a Hindu Pallan (a Scheduled Caste) but married a Christian man in 2005, following Christian marriage rites.
The Court said that if a person marries under the Indian Christian Marriage Act, they must be considered Christian and are deemed to have left their original religion. Therefore, they can no longer claim SC status or the benefits tied to it.
Amutha Rani argued she did not convert, saying she remained a practicing Hindu and was not baptized. However, the Court reviewed church records, including the marriage register and baptism records of her children, and found evidence that Christian marriage customs like “banns” were followed, indicating she joined the Christian faith.
The Court rejected her community certificates and temple membership claims, calling one certificate fake based on a letter from the temple committee.
The Court noted that only marriage under the Special Marriage Act would allow her to keep her Hindu SC status without conversion.
Fr A Santhanam, a Jesuit lawyer at Madras High Court, criticized the ruling strongly:
“This judgment violates Article 25 of the Indian Constitution, which guarantees freedom of conscience and the right to practice and propagate religion.”
He added, “It unfairly punishes a person for marrying under Christian rites by assuming she gave up Hinduism and SC status, ignoring her personal beliefs.”
He called this “a rigid reading of religious identity that ignores how caste often stays even after conversion,” and said the ruling “revives old patriarchal ideas that a woman’s identity merges into her husband’s, which goes against constitutional gender equality.”
Fr Santhanam also pointed out that the judgment conflicts with earlier Supreme Court rulings that said converting religion does not automatically remove disadvantaged caste status. He criticized the court for wrongly interpreting the Christian Marriage Act, which doesn’t automatically mean religious conversion without proof like baptism.
He said, “The court ignored how Catholic Canon Law allows marriage between a Catholic and non-Catholic without conversion.” He called it unfortunate that the judgment used a quote from Pope John Paul II, which he said was irrelevant and gave unnecessary religious overtones to a civil rights matter.
