Children of inter-caste marriages are entitled to Scheduled Caste benefits if one parent belongs to a Scheduled Caste and the other parent has reconverted to Hinduism, provided there is community acceptance.

JUDGMENT

The petitioner has approached this Court being aggrieved by Exts.P1, P5, P10, and P11 whereby the KIRTADS, the Screening Committee, the Scrutiny Committee, and the Government have held that the petitioner and his family do not belong to the Hindu Sambava Community, which is a Scheduled Caste Community. The petitioner applied for the Common Entrance Examination for admission to the five-year LLB Course during 2018-19 under the SC quota. Doubting the caste status of the petitioner, the matter was referred to KIRTADS for a report. KIRTADS submitted its report on 17.08.2018. The Screening Committee thereafter passed orders on 31.03.2018 rejecting the claim of the petitioner under the SC quota. The petitioner filed a review petition before the Government on 04.02.2019 under the provisions of Act 11 of 1996. The Government referred the matter to the Scrutiny Committee, which heard the petitioner on 28.05.2019. The Screening Committee rejected the claim of the petitioner by order dated 09.08.2019, and the Government thereafter issued Exts.P11 order on 22.10.2019 declaring that the petitioner and his family members were not persons belonging to the Scheduled Caste Community.

2. The petitioner submits that the Screening Committee had passed Ext.P5 order even without giving a copy of the KIRTADS report to the petitioner. The petitioner obtained a copy of the report by filing an application under the Right to Information Act. According to the petitioner, the Expert Agency, as well as the Scrutiny Committee, ignored the fact that the petitioner's father belongs to a Scheduled Caste Community, and even if it were to be held that the petitioner's mother did not belong to a Scheduled Caste Community, the petitioner is entitled to the benefits available to the children born out of inter-caste marriage.

3. Reliance is placed on the Full Bench decision of this Court reported in Indira v. State Kerala [2005 (4) KLT 119], wherein this Court has held that if a child is born out of inter-caste marriage and brought up with the same handicap, disadvantage and suffering, it will be harsh to deny the SC benefit to the child for the reason that one of his parents does not belong to an SC. The judgment of the Full Bench was upheld by the Hon'ble Supreme Court inRameshbhai Dabhai Naika v. State of Gujarat ( (Civil Appeal No.654/2012) ]; it is contended.

4. Coming to the facts of the case, the petitioner's paternal grandfather, Sri Yohannan Thopppil, belonged to the Scheduled Caste Sambava Community, and he had converted to Christianity. He had married the late Saramma, who was a native of Puthanangadi, Kottayam, belonging to the Scheduled Caste Sambava Community, who had also converted to Christianity. Seven children were born out of the wedlock, and the petitioner's father, T.J.Thampi, is one among them.

5. KIRTADS noted in its report that the siblings of Thampy T.J., named John, Santhamma, David, Lailamma, Jacob, and Wilson, have married persons who had converted to Christianity from the Hindu Sambava Community. It is also noted in the report that T.J.Thampi had reconverted to the Hindu religion when he was 24 years of age through Kerala Hindu Mission, Thiruvananthapuram, on 18.07.1994, and the same had been notified in the Gazette on 10.09.1974. Though such a conscious decision to re-convert was taken by Sri T.J.Thampi, the report proceeds to say that it is clear that the “petitioner's father is nurtured and socialised as a Christian” and that he had accepted Hinduism later.

6. The report also says that on the maternal side of the petitioner, the maternal grandfather, who belonged to the Scheduled Caste Sambava Community, had converted to Christianity, and he married Saramma, who was also a member of the S