The main legal point established in the judgment is that upon conversion to Hinduism, a person can regain membership in the caste of their parents if accepted by the caste members, as established in Guntur Medical College v. Mohan Rao and C.M. Arummugam v. S. Rajgopal.

1. The petitioner was appointed as a Lower Division Clerk in the first respondent-Corporation with effect from 4-4-1979. She was regularised in that post with effect from 29-10-1979. She was overaged at the time of her appointment, but that disqualification was overlooked on the basis of her statement that she belonged to a Scheduled Caste. Subsequently by Ext. P3 her service was terminated. No reason is stated in Ext. P3 apart from a reference to the temporary nature of her appointment. The petitioner contends that her service was terminated because the respondents wrongly came to the conclusion that she had misled them by stating that she was a member of the. Scheduled Caste. The allegation has not been denied. In fact it has been accepted by the respondents in the counter affidavit. The case of the respondents, as disclosed in the counter affidavit, is that the petitioner could not have been a member of the Scheduled Caste as she was born of non-Hindu parents. This is what the respondents say:

" ...The position that emerges is that, neither common sense nor the laws enacted support a view that a person born of non-Hindu parents by conversion to Hinduism, could become a member of the Scheduled Caste. It would thus be seen that the contention of the petitioner that she was a member of the Scheduled Caste or that she did not give an incorrect declaration, cannot be sustained"

The sole reason for the termination of the petitioner's service is thus admitted to be that she supplied incorrect information about her caste because at the time of her birth her parents were not Hindus, for they had been converted to Christianity before she was born, and as such she could not by conversion to Hinduism claim to be a member of the Scheduled Caste. This was the fundamental assumption on the basis of which the respondents came to the conclusion that the petitioner misled them about her caste. This was an inference of law which was drawn by the respondents and which led to the termination of the petitioner's service. This inference, as seen from the decision of the Supreme Court in Guntur Medical College v. Mohan Rao ((1976) 1 S.C.W.R. 448), was founded on wrong understanding of the law. Referring to its decision in C.M. Arummugam v. S. Rajgopal (AIR. 1976 SC. 939), the Supreme Court stated:

7. The reasoning on which this decision proceeded is equally applicable in a case where the parents of a person are converted from Hinduism to Christianity and be is born after their conversion and on his subsequently embracing Hinduism, the members of the caste to which the parents belonged prior to their conversion accept him as a member within the fold. It is for the members of the caste to decide whether or not to admit a person within the caste. Since the caste is a social combination of persons governed by its rules and regulations, it may, if its rules and regulations so provide, admit a new member just as it may expel an existing member. The only requirement for admission of a person as a member of the caste is the acceptance of the person by the other members of the caste, for, as pointed out by Krishnaswami Ayyangar, J., in Durgaprasad Rao v. Sudarsanaswami, AIR. 1940 Mad. 513, "in matters affecting the well being or composition of a caste, the caste itself is the Supreme Judge", (emphasis supplied). It will, therefore„ be seen that on conversion to Hinduism, a person born of Christian converts would not become a member of the caste to which his parents belonged prior to their conversion to Christianity, automatically or as a matter of course, but he would become such member, if the other members of the caste accept him as a member and admit him within the fold."

In the light of this decision, it was not open to the respondent-Corporation to say that, by reason only of the fact that the petitioner's parents were Christians at the time of her birth, she was not entitled to claim upon conversion to Hinduism a membership of the caste to wh