Supreme Court orders SC tag for non-Dalit wife’s children | India News – Times of India

The children will be groomed in a non-Dalit household and yet would be considered SCs for admissions to educational institutions

NEW DELHI: Using its omnibus power under Article 142 of the Constitution, Supreme Court on Thursday annulled the marriage between a non-Dalit woman and a Dalit man, and ordered the husband to get Scheduled Caste certificates for their minor children, who have been with their mother for the last six years.
The rationale behind this order from Justices Surya Kant and Ujjal Bhuyan, while granting divorce to Juhi Poria nee Jawalkar and Pradip Poria, was that though a non-Dalit woman cannot acquire membership of a Scheduled Caste community through marriage, her children born to a Scheduled Caste man would be entitled to the SC tag.
The SC has reiterated this principle in many judgments and had ruled in 2018, “There cannot be any dispute that caste is determined by birth and caste cannot be changed by marriage with a person from Scheduled Caste (community). Merely because her husband belongs to a Scheduled Caste community, she could not be issued a Scheduled Caste certificate.”
In the present case, the children – an 11-year-old son and a six-year-old daughter – have been residing with the non-Dalit woman at her parent’s home in Raipur for the last six years, the period of the couple’s estrangement. With the SC granting divorce, the children will continue to be groomed in a non-Dalit household and yet would be considered Scheduled Castes for the purpose of admissions to govt educational institutions and employment.
The Justice Kant-led bench asked the husband to move the authorities concerned and get SC certificates for the two children within six months. It said he would bear all expenses of their education till post-graduation, including admission and tuition fees as well as boarding and lodging expenses.
This is in addition to Rs 42 lakh paid by the man to the woman as a one-time settlement towards lifelong maintenance of the woman and the children. The man would also give a plot of land owned by him in Raipur to the woman.
Interestingly, the bench also gave effect to a clause in the settlement between the estranged couple mandating the husband to buy her a two-wheeler for personal use by Aug 31 next year. The bench also quashed the cross-FIRs and cases lodged by the parties against each other.
The SC directed the woman to facilitate periodic meetings of the children with their father, allow them to be taken on vacation by him and build a good relationship between them.