NEW DELHI,Jan19,2012: Opening a window for children to assume the caste of their mothers, the Supreme Court on Wednesday ruled that a person born from the marriage between a tribal and a non-tribal could not be denied Scheduled Tribe status merely because his father belonged to upper caste Kshatriya community. Apart from this landmark ruling, the court also said that given the increase in the number of inter-caste and inter-community marriages, it was about time to consider whether it was proper to assign a woman the caste status of her husband invoking the customary Hindu law when such marriages were in breach of such custom.
The apex court quashed a Gujarat High Court judgment refusing ST status to Rameshbhai Dabhai Naika, whose father was a Kshatriya. The SC said his mother was undeniably a Nayak, one of the Scheduled Tribes in Gujarat, and that he and his siblings were also married to Nayaks. It also found that Rameshbhai was brought up as a member of the Nayak community.
The HC had relied on three judgments of the apex court, which had consistently declined either SC or ST status to the children whose father belonged to upper caste or were non-tribal. The HC ruling had resulted in loss of fair price shop allotted to Rameshbhai because of his ST status.
Accepting counsel Sanjay Hegde's contention, a bench of Justices Aftab Alam and Ranjana P Desai allowed Rameshbhai's appeal saying, "He was brought up as a tribal and consequently, shared all the indignities and handicaps and deprivation normally suffered by the tribal community."
It asked the scrutiny committee to take a fresh decision on the basis of evidence produced by Rameshbhai uninfluenced by the court's judgments. Hegde had argued that the HC order not only impacted him but his children too despite being born to a tribal mother and spending their entire childhood as members of the tribal society.
Justice Alam, writing the judgment for the bench, said though the earlier SC judgments had not ruled out conferring SC or ST status on children provided they proved that they suffered the handicaps associated with the SC or ST communities like their mothers.
"It is wrong and incorrect to read the three earlier judgments of the Supreme Court as laying down the rule that in an inter-caste marriage or a marriage between a tribal and a non-tribal, the child must always be deemed to take his/her caste from the father regardless of the attending facts and circumstances of each case," the bench said.
The apex court added, "It also needs to be considered how far it would be proper to invoke the customary Hindu law to alter the caste status of a woman in an inter-caste marriage or a marriage between a tribal and a non-tribal and to assign the woman the caste of her husband when such a marriage may itself be in complete breach of the Hindu customary law."
It said there was a general presumption in inter-caste and tribal-non-tribal marriages to assign caste and tribe status of the father to the children, especially when the father belonged to upper caste or was a non-tribal. "By no means is the presumption conclusive or irrefutable and it is open to the child from such marriage to lead evidence to show that he/she was brought up by the mother who belonged to the Scheduled Caste/Scheduled Tribe," it said.
In such cases, despite being born to a upper caste father, the child did not have an advantageous start in life and continued to suffer the deprivations, humilities and handicaps like any other community to which his mother belonged, it said.
The apex court quashed a Gujarat High Court judgment refusing ST status to Rameshbhai Dabhai Naika, whose father was a Kshatriya. The SC said his mother was undeniably a Nayak, one of the Scheduled Tribes in Gujarat, and that he and his siblings were also married to Nayaks. It also found that Rameshbhai was brought up as a member of the Nayak community.
The HC had relied on three judgments of the apex court, which had consistently declined either SC or ST status to the children whose father belonged to upper caste or were non-tribal. The HC ruling had resulted in loss of fair price shop allotted to Rameshbhai because of his ST status.
Accepting counsel Sanjay Hegde's contention, a bench of Justices Aftab Alam and Ranjana P Desai allowed Rameshbhai's appeal saying, "He was brought up as a tribal and consequently, shared all the indignities and handicaps and deprivation normally suffered by the tribal community."
It asked the scrutiny committee to take a fresh decision on the basis of evidence produced by Rameshbhai uninfluenced by the court's judgments. Hegde had argued that the HC order not only impacted him but his children too despite being born to a tribal mother and spending their entire childhood as members of the tribal society.
Justice Alam, writing the judgment for the bench, said though the earlier SC judgments had not ruled out conferring SC or ST status on children provided they proved that they suffered the handicaps associated with the SC or ST communities like their mothers.
"It is wrong and incorrect to read the three earlier judgments of the Supreme Court as laying down the rule that in an inter-caste marriage or a marriage between a tribal and a non-tribal, the child must always be deemed to take his/her caste from the father regardless of the attending facts and circumstances of each case," the bench said.
The apex court added, "It also needs to be considered how far it would be proper to invoke the customary Hindu law to alter the caste status of a woman in an inter-caste marriage or a marriage between a tribal and a non-tribal and to assign the woman the caste of her husband when such a marriage may itself be in complete breach of the Hindu customary law."
It said there was a general presumption in inter-caste and tribal-non-tribal marriages to assign caste and tribe status of the father to the children, especially when the father belonged to upper caste or was a non-tribal. "By no means is the presumption conclusive or irrefutable and it is open to the child from such marriage to lead evidence to show that he/she was brought up by the mother who belonged to the Scheduled Caste/Scheduled Tribe," it said.
In such cases, despite being born to a upper caste father, the child did not have an advantageous start in life and continued to suffer the deprivations, humilities and handicaps like any other community to which his mother belonged, it said.