The Nagpur bench of the Bombay High Court has clarified that the mere presence of a photograph of Jesus Christ in a house does not necessarily imply that a person has converted to Christianity.
A division bench of Justices Prithviraj Chavan and Urmila Joshi Phalke on October 10 allowed a petition filed by a 17-year-old girl challenging a September 2022 order passed by the Amravati District Caste Certificate Scrutiny Committee invalidating her caste as Mahar.
It was said there that the vigilance officer's report needed to be thrown out at the door because it is obvious that the petitioner's family practises Buddhism. The decision invalidating her caste claim was taken after the committee’s vigilance cell conducted an inquiry and found that the petitioner’s father and grandfather had converted to Christianity and a photograph of Jesus Christ was found displayed in their home.
The HC bench in its order noted there was absolutely no shred of evidence found by the vigilance cell during inquiry that either the grandfather, father or the petitioner had undergone baptism in order to buttress the committee’s contention that the petitioner’s family had converted to Christianity. No sane man will accept or believe that merely because there is a photograph of Jesus Christ in the house would ipso facto mean that a person had converted himself into Christianity, the court said.
Baptism is a Christian sacrament by which one is received in Church and sometimes given a name, generally involving the candidate is to be anointed with or submerged in water, it said. The petitioner relied on the ‘Mahar’ caste certificates issued in the past to her father, grandfather and other blood relations. She had also submitted a pre-constitutional document, an extract of a book, in order to substantiate her claim of belonging to Mahar, which is a scheduled caste. The bench said the committee had rendered the pre-constitutional document otiose. What more proof was required to be considered by the Committee who appears to have turned a Nelson’s eye to this glaring document apart from three validity certificates which have already been granted by it in favour of blood relatives of the petitioner, the HC said.