Supreme Court reserves verdict on Devikulam MLA A. Raja’s appeal against Kerala HC invalidation of his 2021 poll victory

Supreme Court hears appeal of CPM leader challenging High Court's denial of Scheduled Caste status due to alleged Christian conversion.

The Supreme Court on Thursday (September 26, 2024) reserved its judgment on an appeal filed by Devikulam MLA and CPI(M) leader A. Raja against a Kerala High Court decision to invalidate the 2021 Assembly election to the reserved seat and disqualify him as a legislator.

The High Court had found him ineligible for Scheduled Caste (SC) reservation on the grounds that he was a Christian convert. It had ordered Mr. Raja to stand trial. The Supreme Court had stayed the High Court decision in 2023.

A Bench headed by Justice A.S. Oka, in the hearing, instead questioned the line of argument of Congress candidate D. Kumar throwing doubts on the identity of Mr. Raja as a member of the ‘Hindu-Parayan’ community without first challenging the validity of the caste certificate of the CPM leader.

In his appeal, Mr. Raja said he was a member of a Scheduled Caste, namely ‘Hindu-Parayan’ by birth and professing Hindu religion all through his life. Mr. Raja said he was born on October 17, 1984, professed the Hindu religion and was accepted by the ‘Hindu-Parayan’ caste as their member.

He had argued that Mr. Kumar had never challenged the authenticity of his documents. The High Court, in its judgment, had not discussed or even referred to the certificates submitted by him while holding that he was not a member of Hindu-Parayan caste.

“Can he be denied the benefit of Scheduled Caste for declaring his election from the Devikulam Legislative Assembly Constituency, which is reserved for the Scheduled Caste, as void, on the basis of an alleged conversion to Christianity which was neither pleaded nor proved by the respondent [Kumar],” the appeal had asked.

The appeal questioned whether the High Court had been right in denying the benefit of SC status to Mr. Raja in spite of proving the fact that his paternal grandparents had migrated to the erstwhile Travancore State (now Kerala) before 1950 and continued to permanently reside in Kerala thereafter.