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New Delhi :

The Central Government has told the Supreme Court that the 'Constitution (Scheduled Castes) Order, 1950 does not suffer from any 'unconstitutionality' and Christianity and Islam were excluded because the oppressive system of untouchability did not exist in either of these religions.

The Constitution (Scheduled Castes) Order, 1950, as amended from time to time, states that a person professing a religion other than Hinduism, Sikhism and Buddhism shall not be considered a member of a Scheduled Caste (SC).

The government told the SC that it has not accepted the Justice Ranganath Mishra Commission report, which recommended inclusion of Dalit Christians and Dalit Muslims in the list of Scheduled Castes, as it was flawed.

The government outlined these issues in a reply filed in the top court on a petition.

The petition alleged that the Constitution (Scheduled Castes) Order, 1950 was discriminatory and violative of Articles 14 (equality before law) and 15 (prohibition of discrimination on grounds of religion, race, caste, etc.) of the Constitution. came before a bench headed by Justice SK Kaul.

The bench also included Justice A S Oka and Justice Vikram Nath.

Senior advocate Prashant Bhushan, appearing for petitioner NGO Public Interest Litigation and others, told the bench that the Center has filed an affidavit stating that it intends to appoint another commission to look into the issue. A commission headed by former Chief Justice KG Balakrishnan was recently set up to look into the grant of SC status to new people claiming to be SCs formally and subsequently converting to religions other than those mentioned in the 'Presidential Order'. Bhushan told the bench that the government has asked the new commission to submit its report within two years. The bench posted the batch of petitions on the subject for January next year.




(This news has not been edited by NDTV team. It is published directly from syndicate feed.)

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