The Madras High Court has held that candidates born and raised in Puducherry can claim Scheduled Caste (SC), Most Backward Class (MBC), and Other Backward Class (OBC) reservation benefits based on their mother's native origin status even if their father is a migrant from outside the Union Territory [Thelagam vs Union Territory of Puducherry]

By way of an order passed on August 27, Justice D Bharatha Chakravarthy allowed a batch of 28 petitions and set aside orders of the Union Territory administration that had refused or downgraded community certificates to "migrant" status solely because the petitioners' fathers, though of the same caste as their mothers, had moved to Puducherry from other States.

The Court rejected Puducherry's position that caste status must be traced through the father since Indian society is patriarchal.

The Court ruled that such reasoning cannot be sustained under Articles 14, 15 and 16 of the Constitution, particularly after the 2004 amendment to the Hindu Succession Act gave women equal coparcenary rights.

"The society is driven as under by ‘Caste’, and it operates to a great extent in the minds of the people. Similarly, while sex is true, in that any person is born as male, female or intersex, gender stereotypes are based on stories and beliefs built over a period of time, and they are not necessarily true," the Court said in its order.

Applying the Supreme Court's test in Rameshbhai Dabhai Naik vs State of Gujarat, the Court held that by virtue of being the son of a forward caste father he did not have any advantageous start in life but on the contrary suffered the deprivations, indignities, humilities and handicaps like any other member of the community to which his/her mother belonged.

Since the petitioners were born, educated and continuously resident in Puducherry within their mothers' communities, they satisfied this test regardless of the father's migrant status, the Court ruled.

The Court also disagreed with the Additional Government Pleader's submission that Division Benches of the High Court were split on the issue.

It noted that only three Division Bench rulings had gone against recognising origin status through the mother. All three relied on a 2000 government memorandum that was later declared unconstitutional in P Jeya v. Union of India, a ruling that attained finality once the Supreme Court dismissed the appeal against it in 2023.

Every Division Bench ruling since then has consistently held in favour of granting certificates based on the mother's nativity, the Court said.

The Court further held that a 2025 communication from the Union Ministry, on which the Puducherry administration had relied, was merely an internal advisory suggesting that an appeal be filed before the Supreme Court, and did not authorise the administration to disregard the binding High Court precedent.

The Court also pointed to an inconsistency in the administration's own policy. When a Puducherry man marries a migrant woman, their child, born and raised in Puducherry is granted reservation benefits but when a Puducherry woman marries a migrant man, her child, also born and raised in her caste and community, is denied the same benefit.

"The basis of reservation is only social disadvantage and the sufferings and stigma attached to the child; that is the primordial factor for conferring the benefit. Whether it is patrilineal or matrilineal makes no difference," the Court said.

Hence, the Court set aside the orders and directed that the petitioners be issued community certificates recognising origin status based on their mothers' nativity.

It clarified that the ruling would not protect false caste claims or cases where the mother's own nativity is itself in dispute.

Senior Advocate G Masilamani along with advocates V Ajayakumar, M Gnanasekar, Prakash Adiapadam, Stalin Abhimanyu, Parthiban Pathmanabane, K Uthayanithi, S Sathia Chandran and Kamala Kumar appeared for the petitioners.

Additional Government Pleader R Sreedhar appeared for the Puducherry administration.

[Read Order]