Context: Supreme Court government may need to “re-check” its stance on the Ranganath Mishra Commission’s report.

About Ranganath Mishra Commission

• It was constituted by the Government of India in 2004.

• Aim: to look into various issues related to Linguistic and Religious minorities in India.

• It was chaired by former Chief Justice of India Justice Ranganath Misra.

• The commission submitted the report in 2007.

Key recommendations

• Give 10% quotas for Muslims and 5% for other minorities in government jobs and in seats in all the higher educational institutions (graduation and above).

• Reserve 8.4% quota out of the existing OBC quota of 27% for religious minorities, mainly Muslims.

• Permit Dalits who convert to Islam or Christianity to avail of reservation benefits under the Scheduled Caste reservation quota.

Government’s Stance on Ranganath Mishra Commission

• Report of the Ranganath Mishra Commission is not accepted by the government.

• The government has argued that Dalits who converted to Christianity or Islam to overcome the burdens of caste cannot claim reservation benefits enjoyed by those who chose to stay back in the Hindu religious system.

• Government had recently constituted a new Commission headed by a former Chief Justice of India K.G. Balakrishnan, to prepare a report on the question of granting SC status to “new persons who have historically belonged to the Scheduled Castes but have converted to religions other than Hinduism, Buddhism and Sikhism”.

• The government has said that the new Commission’s terms of reference were in tune with the Supreme Court judgment in Soosai versus Union of India in 1985.

• This judgment held that for inclusion in the 1950 Order, there should be proof through empirical data that Hindu Dalit converts were suffering from the same “oppressive severity” in the new environment of a different religious community.