Conversion and reservation: What the Supreme Court ruled | Explained

File The Hindu The Hindu The controversy in the case of Secretary to Government versus Sameer Ahamed N. began with a man, born to Hindu parents in 1993 at Thoothukudi district in Tamil Nadu, voluntarily converting to Islam in September 2015 The story so far: The Supreme Court, in an October 15 judgment, declared that a Hindu who had converted to a “non-Hindu order” cannot claim the benefits of reservation. A Bench of Justices Prashant Kumar Mishra and Shree Chandrashekhar held that a person who converts from a Hindu social order to a non-Hindu social order cannot claim affirmative action under Article 16(4) of the Constitution merely on the basis of the social backwardness associated with his pre-conversion status.