Scheduled Caste status should be "religion neutral", Supreme Court to hear plea by Dalit Christians

The Supreme Court today agreed to hear plea filed by the National Council for Dalit Christians (NCDC) seeking inclusion of Dalit Christians in the category of Scheduled Castes..This petition filed through Advocate Franklin Caesar Thomas opposes the non inclusion of Dalits professing religions other than Hinduism, Sikhism, or Buddhism and states that the consideration for Scheduled Caste (SC) status should be made "religion neutral".The Bench headed by CJI SA Bobde and comprising Justices BR Gavai and Surya Kant agreed to hear the petition and issued notice to the Centre on the same. Raising the point that a change in religion does not take away the discrimination meted out to the people belonging to the Dalit community, the NCDC prays for the benefits extended to Scheduled Castes to be extended to the Dalits professing Christianity. The plea also seeks for religion to be delinked from consideration for Scheduled Caste status.The Christian Dalits are deprived of the benefits provided to the membersof Scheduled Caste community and therefore, one of the prayers of the NCDC is for the Scheduled Caste status to be given to them in order to enable the Christian Dalits to be covered under the scope of the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act of 1989 also..Allow and extend the Scheduled Castes status to Christians of Scheduled Castes origin for availing the Indian Constitutional provisions under Articles 16, 46, 330, 332, 335, 338, 341, 366-24 and for availing the legal remedy/protection under Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989.One of the prayers made in plea by NCDC.Exclusion of this class of people from the Scheduled Caste category is in violation of Articles 14, 15, 16, and 25, the petition states and also seeks for Paragraph (3) of the Constitution (Scheduled Castes) Order, 1950 to be declared unconstitutional and void on this ground. This Paragraph states that the Scheduled caste status may not be granted to any person not belonging to any one of three religions - Hinduism, Sikhism, and Buddhism. The petition adds,.The non-inclusion of Christians in Paragraph (3) of the Constitution (Scheduled Castes) Order, 1950 along with Hinduism, Sikhism, and Buddhism, is discriminatory and in violative of Articles 14, 15, 16, and 25 of the Constitution of India..The Supreme Court, while issuing notice on this plea, has also tagged the PIL with another similar matter.