Supreme Court judgment opens up the religion-neutrality of OBC classification for debate

The Supreme Court clarifies that non-Hindu communities can be OBC, but distinguishes between the sources of backwardness for Hindu OBCs and non-Hindu OBCs on the question of continuing backwardness for converts

The religion-neutrality of the Other Backward Classes (OBC) classification has been thrown open for debate after the Supreme Court's recent decision that an OBC Hindu person loses the entitlement to reservation once they convert to another religion.

While the Scheduled Castes (SCs) have always been identified by a religion criterion, and the Scheduled Tribes (STs) classification has never considered religion, and the OBC classification, since its implementation after the 1992 Indra Sawhneyvs. Union of India judgment, has remained religion-neutral.

Communities (whether classes or castes) are examined for 11 social, educational, and economic backwardness indicators, and then classified as such based on a threshold score. Forms for OBC certificates across States do not ask for the religion of an applicant nor does an OBC certificate declare the holder's religion.

In deciding the question of whether a Hindu OBC person is entitled to reservation after converting to another faith, the Supreme Court Bench of Justices Prashant Kumar Mishra and Shree Chandrashekhar, in its October 15 judgment, has established that the "source of social backwardness" must necessarily be considered in this inquiry.

The judgment noted that, for a Hindu OBC individual, the "legal foundation" of their entitlement to reservation is "specifically conditioned upon membership of that Hindu social order".

Discussing the "source of social backwardness", the court noted that while Indra Sawhneyvs. Union of India prevented caste from being the sole criterion for OBC classification, what cannot be disregarded is that in Hindu society, the "foundational institution" of caste has historically determined social and other manifestations of backwardness.

While the court admitted in the judgment that educational, economic, and other forms of backwardness may continue for an OBC person who has left the Hindu faith, their very act of choosing another faith puts them in a different "social order", altering the "source of social backwardness", it has said.

This reading of the Bench of Justices Mishra and Chandrashekhar flows from how it has understood the idea of social stratification across faiths in India, essentially noting that the source of social backwardness varies based on the nature of social stratification in any given social order.

This understanding of social stratification makes a subtle departure from how the same concept was discussed in the Indra Sawhney judgment, which has laid the foundation for identifying OBCs so far, without entering the question of the source of social backwardness, regardless of whether the communities are classes or castes, Hindu or Muslim.

Ever since Indra Sawhneyvs. Union of India cleared the way for identifying OBC groups, the social backwardness of communities requesting OBC status has been determined with four criteria, none of which required an examination of the "source of social backwardness". Apart from markers for levels of child marriage, degree of dependence on manual labour, and female participation in the workforce, the criteria say that the applicant community (class or caste) must be "considered socially backward by others".

While the approach of the Supreme Court in the Indra Sawhney case was that caste had permeated all faiths in India and that the difference was just a matter of degrees of operation, the 2026 judgement of the court makes a point of distinguishing social stratification through caste in Hindu society and "caste-like" social stratifications in non-Hindu social orders, including Islam.

While Indra Sawhney noted how social stratification in Islam and Christianity was similar to that of caste in Hindu society, the 2026 judgment zeroed in on the differences in these types of social stratifications. To be sure, the Supreme Court, in its October 15 judgement, clarifies that non-Hindu communities can be OBC, but distinguishes between the sources of backwardness for Hindu OBCs and non-Hindu OBCs on the question of continuing backwardness for converts.