The Bombay High Court has said that merely because there is a photograph of Jesus Christ in a house, it would not mean that a person has converted to Christianity. The court made the remarks while allowing a petition filed by a girl challenging a September 2022 order passed by the Amravati District Caste Certificate Scrutiny Committee invalidating her caste as ‘Mahar’, which comes under SC.
The decision invalidating her caste claim was taken after the committee’s vigilance cell conducted an inquiry and found that the petitioner’s father and grandfather had converted to Christianity and a photograph of Jesus Christ was found displayed in their home. Since, they converted to Christianity, they are included in the category of OBC, the committee had said.
The High Court in its order said there was no shred of evidence found by the vigilance cell during inquiry that either the grandfather, father or the petitioner had undergone baptism in order to buttress the committee’s contention that the petitioner’s family had converted to Christianity.
“No sane man will accept or believe that merely because there is a photograph of Jesus Christ in the house would ipso facto mean that a person had converted himself into Christianity,” the court said. “Baptism is a Christian sacrament by which one is received in Church and sometimes given a name, generally involving the candidate is to be anointed with or submerged in water,” it added.
The report of the vigilance officer needs to be discarded at the threshold as it is clear that the petitioner’s family follows the tradition of Buddhism, it said.
The petitioner relied on the ‘Mahar’ caste certificates issued in the past to her father, grandfather and other blood relations.
The court quashed the scrutiny committee’s order and directed it to issue a caste validity certificate to the petitioner as belonging to ‘Mahar’ (Scheduled Caste) within a period of two weeks.
