S GURMUKH SINGH Vs. UNION OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS matter has come before us in the form of an appeal under Clause 10 of the Letters Patent from an order of Kapur, J. , dismissing the appellant's petition 'in limine'.

(2.) THE appellant is Gurmukh Singh belonging, to caste Bawaria and professing the Sikh religion. His grievance is that he is adversely affected by the Constitution (Scheduled Castes) Order, 1950, promulgated by the President. This Order which was passed under Clause (1) of Article 341 of the Constitution specified the castes which were to be deemed Scheduled Castes for the purposes of the Constitution. Thirty-four different castes of the Punjab State were notified to be scheduled Castes. Para 3 of the Order, however, provided that "no person who professes a religion different from Hinduism shall be deemed to be a member of a Scheduled Caste. " in the case of Punjab an exception was made with, respect to four out of the 34 castes and it was provided that all Ramdasis, Kabirpanthis, Mazhabis or Sikligars will be deemed to be members of the Scheduled castes whether they profess the Hindu or the Sikh religion. The appellant gurmukh Singh is a Bawaria and Bawaria is not one of the four excepted castes. According to the President's Order only Hindu Bawarias are to be deemed members of the Scheduled Castes, and since the appellant professes the Sikh religion he is not to have any privileges which might be enjoyed by members of the Scheduled Castes. He claims that he being a member of the bawaria caste is entitled to all the privileges which the President's Notification under Article 341 implies even though he professes the Sikh religion. The ground on which he bases his claim is that under the Constitution of India no discrimination is to be made against any individual on the ground of religion. I need scarcely mention here that Scheduled Castes have been given certain special privileges and the appellant is anxious to enjoy these privileges by being declared a member of the Bawaria Scheduled Caste. This petition came up in the first instance before kapur, J. , who at the preliminary hearing passed the order "dismissed". An appeal against this order of dismissal was filed under Clause 10 of the Letters Patent and this appeal came up before harnam Singh and Soni, JJ. They thought that the matter required consideration by a larger bench and so eventually the matter came before us under the order of my Lord the Chief Justice. We have heard lengthy arguments from learned counsel on both sides.

(3.) BEFORE coming to the merits of the case a preliminary point which was raised before us must be disposed of. Article 14 of the Constitution provides that the "state" shall not deny to any person equality before the law. 'in Article 15 also the word "state" is used and this Article lays down that the State shall not discriminate against any citizen on grounds only of religion, race, caste, etc. The point raised was that the President is not synonymous with the State and since this is art Order of the President and not of the State the appellant can have no grievance, for although the State cannot discriminate against a citizen on the ground of religion, the President may well do so.