Madurai Bench Strikes Down Tamil Nadu G.O. Allowing Converts to Islam to Claim BC(Muslim) Status

The Madurai Bench held that a convert to Islam becomes simply a Muslim and cannot be slotted into a notified backward-class Muslim sect, declaring G.O. (Ms) No. 31 dated 09.03.2024 unconstitutional.

A Division Bench of the Madras High Court sitting at Madurai has declared G.O. (Ms) No. 31, Backward Classes, Most Backward Classes and Minorities Welfare Department, dated 09 March 2024 unconstitutional. The bench, comprising Justice G.R. Swaminathan and Justice P.B. Balaji, held that a person who converts to Islam cannot claim the status of a Backward Class Muslim by being assigned to any of the seven notified Muslim sects under Section 3(a) of the Tamil Nadu Act 45 of 1994. The judgment arose from a writ petition filed by Sameer Ahamed (born Paramasivam), a Thoothukudi resident who converted to Islam in 2015 and sought a community certificate as “Muslim Lebbai” after his application was rejected by the Tahsildar, Kayathar. The bench sustained that rejection and disposed of the writ petition accordingly.

The Petitioner's Conversion and the Rejected Application

Sameer Ahamed was born on 12 April 1993 to a Hindu couple, Narayanan and Gomathiammal, in Tuticorin District. A certificate issued by the Sunnath Jamath, Kayathar, dated 11 September 2015 records that he embraced Islam and changed his name to Sameer Ahamed. A gazette publication followed on 02 November 2016. He married one Vahitha as per Islamic rites on 04 November 2016, and two children were born of the marriage.

He applied for a community certificate certifying him as “Muslim Lebbai,” claiming to follow the faith of Lebbai Muslims. The Tahsildar, Kayathar, rejected the application, noting in a brief order that the petitioner had converted to a religion and not to any caste. The petitioner challenged that rejection by filing WP(MD) No. 7127 of 2022 under Article 226 of the Constitution, seeking a writ of certiorarified mandamus to quash the rejection and direct issuance of the community certificate.

The writ petition was filed in 2022 but came up for substantive hearing only in June 2026. The petitioner's counsel candidly acknowledged that the case rested entirely on G.O. (Ms) No. 31 dated 09 March 2024, which had been issued after the petition was filed. Without that G.O., the petitioner had no case.

The Government Order and Its Origins

The G.O. had a specific legislative history. One U. Akbar Ali, who belonged to the Most Backward Class category, had converted to Islam and sought to be considered for public employment under the BC(Muslim) category. The Tamil Nadu Public Service Commission took the position that he would fall under the General Category. Justice G.R. Swaminathan, sitting singly, upheld that stand in WP(MD) No. 1019 of 2022 decided on 01 December 2022, following the Division Bench decision in G. Michael v. S. Venkateswaran (1952) 1 MLJ 239 and S. Yasmine v. The Secretary, TNPSC 2013 (4) CTC 53.

Those decisions held that upon conversion to Islam, a person becomes a Muslim and his place in Muslim society is not determined by the caste to which he belonged before conversion. The Tamil Nadu Backward Classes Commission, responding to representations from Muslim communities, recommended by letter dated 06 February 2024 that the government rationalise the grant of BC(Muslim) community certificates to persons belonging to Backward Classes, Most Backward Classes, Denotified Communities, or Scheduled Castes who convert to any one of the seven notified Muslim groups. The State Government accepted that recommendation and issued G.O. (Ms) No. 31 on 09 March 2024.

Under the G.O., a convert from BC, MBC, Denotified Community, or Scheduled Caste to Islam could be treated as BC(Muslim) and issued a community certificate as belonging to one of the seven notified sects: Ansar, Dekkani Muslims, Dubekula, Labbais (including Rowthar and Marakayar), Mapilla, Sheik, and Syed.

The Procedural Twist Before Final Disposal

When the matter was taken up for final disposal on 25 June 2026, the Additional Advocate General had filed a detailed counter affidavit and a typed set of papers enclosing the relevant G.Os. Before he could make his submissions, the petitioner's counsel informed the court that he had received a change of vakalat — effectively withdrawing from the brief.

The bench declined to adjourn. It observed that the matter had been heard on multiple occasions, that counsel had already made submissions, and that the case had been posted specifically for testing the validity of G.O. (Ms) No. 31. The bench characterised the change of vakalat as a “devious method” of seeking delay, though it did not blame the counsel personally, noting he was acting on instructions. The Government had filed a counter affidavit and the Additional Advocate General appeared to argue in support of the G.O. The bench proceeded to decide the matter.

Why the G.O. Could Not Survive Judicial Scrutiny

The bench's reasoning rested on three distinct grounds: the settled legal position on conversion, the doctrine of separation of powers, and the internal inconsistency of the G.O. itself.

The settled legal position. The 1952 Division Bench decision in G. Michael v. S. Venkateswaran had held that a member of a caste or sub-caste who converts to Islam ceases to be a member of any caste and becomes “just a Mussalman.” That position was approved by the Supreme Court in Kailash Sonkar v. Maya Devi (1984) 2 SCC 91, K.P. Manu v. Scrutiny Committee (2015) 4 SCC 1, and C. Selvarani v. Special Secretary cum District Collector (2024) 16 SCC 537 — the last of these pronounced on 26 November 2024, after the G.O. was issued.

The bench held that membership of the seven notified Muslim communities — Labbai, Syed, Sheik, and the rest — is determined by birth alone. Drawing on the Madras Census Report of 1901, which described Labbais as a “Mussalman caste of partly Tamil origin,” and Edgar Thurston's cataloguing of castes and tribes of Southern India, the bench concluded that these are communities, not sects in the theological sense. Sects, the bench observed, properly refer to Shia, Sunni, or sub-sects such as Hanafi or Ismaili. What has been notified under G.O. (Ms) No. 85 dated 29 July 2008 are communities, not sects. One cannot convert into a Rowther or a Marakkayar any more than one can convert into a birth-determined caste.

The bench also engaged with the theological dimension. Citing Sura Huzurat, Ayat 13 of the Holy Quran and the Prophet's farewell sermon, the bench observed that Islam proclaims the equality of all believers and rejects social hierarchy. It held that categorising certain Muslim communities as backward and others as forward is antithetical to Quranic injunctions, and that the Government's position — that a convert can be absorbed into a notified backward sect — is “inconceivable in principle.”

Separation of powers. The bench held that a Government Order cannot undo a binding judicial decision. Relying on State of T.N. v. State of Kerala (2014) 12 SCC 696, it reiterated that the legislature cannot declare a court's decision void, and the executive has even less authority to do so. The executive cannot sit in appeal, review, or revision over a judicial order, as held in UOI v. K.N. Shankarappa (2001) 1 SCC 582. The G.O. directly contradicted what the Division Bench had held in G. Michael by recognising that a convert could be assigned to one of the seven notified BC(Muslim) sects. That, the bench held, was precisely what the executive cannot do.

Internal inconsistency. The bench identified a further flaw: the G.O. placed Scheduled Caste converts on par with Backward Class converts by slotting all of them into the same seven BC(Muslim) categories. The Supreme Court has consistently held that OBCs and Scheduled Castes form separate categories. Bundling them together merely to ensure that converts retain some form of reservation benefit exposed, in the bench's view, the inherent arbitrariness of the G.O.

The Court's Power to Strike Down Despite No Specific Prayer

The Additional Advocate General pointed out that several Division Bench decisions had acted upon G.O. (Ms) No. 31 without questioning its validity. The bench acknowledged this but held that in those cases the validity of the G.O. was not in issue. It then addressed the question of whether it could strike down the G.O. when both the petitioner and the respondents were relying on it and no specific prayer for striking it down had been made.

The bench answered by applying the principle from Bharathidhasan University v. AICTE (2001) 8 SCC 676: when a subordinate instrument is found to be outside the limits of the power under which it was made, courts are bound to ignore it when its enforcement arises, regardless of whether a specific prayer to strike it down was made. The State Government was a party, had filed a counter affidavit, and the Additional Advocate General had been heard at length. Once the bench found the G.O. illegal, it held it was a judicial duty to declare it so.

Outcome

The Division Bench declared G.O. (Ms) No. 31, BC, MBC and Minorities Welfare Department, dated 09 March 2024 unconstitutional. The Tahsildar's rejection order, which had been challenged in the writ petition, was sustained. The writ petition was disposed of accordingly, with no order as to costs. The connected miscellaneous petition was closed.

As a corollary, the bench held that a convert to Islam cannot claim the status of Backward Class Muslim. The bench's formulation was direct: he is only a Muslim, and that is all there is to it.