Madras HC refuses adjournment, calls petitioner's change of lawyer a 'devious' delay tactic

New Delhi: On Thursday, when the Madras High Court was set to deliver its judgement holding that a convert to Islam cannot claim the status of a Backward Class Muslim, the petitioner sought an adjournment on the ground of a "change of vakalat."

Although the case had been listed for "orders" (on Thursday), as recorded in its judgement, the petitioner apprised the court that he had replaced his lawyer with a new one. The division bench of Justices GR Swaminathan and PB Balaji, however, refused to adjourn the case and berated the petitioner for resorting to a "devious" method to delay the proceedings.

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"Today, when the matter was taken up for final disposal, the learned Additional Advocate General filed a detailed counter affidavit as well as a typed set of papers enclosing the relevant G. Os. But, before he could make his submissions, the counsel for the petitioner informed the court that he had given change of vakalat," the judgement noted.

It added, "Given that the matter was taken up on so many occasions and that the counsel had also made his submissions and the matter was posted 'for orders' only for the purpose of testing the validity of the government order (of Tamil Nadu) dated March 9, 2024, the petitioner is not being fair to the court by adopting the devious method of taking change of vakalat". The court further recorded, "We do not blame the counsel. He after all has to go by instructions. But on this ground, we do not want to adjourn this case either."

Elaborating, the bench observed in its judgement, "As indicated at the outset, the petitioner had no case when he filed the writ petition. Life was infused into his case only by virtue of the aforesaid government order (G. O). If the G. O is sustained, the writ petition has to be allowed. If the G. O is found to be bad in law, the petition will suffer dismissal. The Government has filed a counter affidavit and the Additional Advocate General himself has appeared to strongly espouse the cause of the petitioner".

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In its judgement delivered on Thursday, the Madras HC held that "a convert to Islam cannot claim the status of Backward Class Muslim. He is only a Muslim and that's all there is to it."

The HC declared the 2024 Tamil Nadu government order extending reservation benefits in cases of religious conversion as "unconstitutional" and "sheer arbitrary."