Muslims are not entitled to benefits reserved for the Scheduled Castes (SC), A Punjab and Haryana high court ruled on Tuesday.
 
The court proclaimed while cancelling the 2012 election of Congress MLA Mohammad Sadiq from Punjab's reserved Bhadaur constituency.
 
Sadiq, the court noted, doesn't qualify to contest elections from the SC reserved seat as he is a Muslim. The court further added that Sadiq had failed to prove that he had converted to Sikhism.
 
Claiming that he was a SC Muslim before he converted, Sadiq pleaded that he should be considered SC Sikh after his conversion.
 
The high court order came on the petition of ex-IAS officer and ruling Shiromani Akali Dal's Darbara Singh Guru, who had lost the election to Sadiq by nearly 7,000 votes.
 
Guru's lawyer, Satya Pal Jain argued, "The Constitution (Scheduled Castes) Order, 1950, states that only Hindus, Sikhs and Buddhists can avail benefits as SCs. This is because the caste system is prevalent only in these religions."
 
Sadiq meanwhile said he belonged to the Doom community, which the Punjab government had notified as SC.

Sadiq is a well-known Punjabi folk singer. He claims that he had converted to Sikhism in 2007, but Jain contested this stating he had not follow the prescribed procedure, including notifying the Shiromani Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee.

@liveindia

- Manohar