Overview
- A bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi let a Madras High Court order stand, enabling a Puducherry minor to receive an SC certificate based on her mother's Adi Dravida caste.
- The court framed the relief as a measure to prevent harm to the girl's schooling and explicitly kept the broader question of law unresolved.
- Chief Justice Surya Kant questioned the long‑standing practice by asking why certificates should not be issued on the basis of the mother's caste in changing times.
- Existing presidential notifications from 1964 and 2002 and Home Ministry guidelines instruct authorities to determine eligibility primarily by the father's caste and domicile.
- Earlier Supreme Court rulings, including Punit Rai (2003) and Rameshbhai Dabhai Naika (2012), set a presumption in favor of the father's caste but allow rebuttal in specific circumstances, and similar petitions challenging the paternal rule remain pending.