SC upholds election of Muslim who converted to Sikhism

NEW DELHI: Can a person born in a Muslim family, which practised Islamic rites, claim to have converted to a scheduled caste community in Sikhism and contest assembly elections from a seat reserved for SCs?
The Supreme Court on Friday said he could do so. The relief went the way of popular Punjabi folk singer Mohammad Sadiq, who contested from Bhadaur reserved constituency in 2012 on a Congress ticket and defeated bureaucrat-turned-politician Darbara Singh Guru.
A bench of Justices Ranjan Gogoi and P C Pant set aside a judgment of Punjab and Haryana high court, which had quashed Sadiq’s election on the ground that a Muslim could not contest from a seat reserved for scheduled castes. Sadiq challenged the April 7, 2015 order of the HC in the apex court through advocate Amol Suryawanshi.
Writing the judgment for the bench, Justice Pant said the caste certificate issued to Sadiq by the authorities after his conversion to Sikhism in 2006 had not yet been cancelled. “Nomination for election was filed five years later. Sadiq has sufficiently explained that since he was a popular singer with the name Mohammad Sadiq, he had accepted Sikhism without changing his name,” the bench said.
The court ruled that it was not mandatory for a person to change his name after conversion to another religion or faith.