In a landmark judgement, the Supreme Court of India ruled that religious conversions carried out solely to claim reservation benefits, without genuine belief in the adopted religion, constitute a "fraud on the Constitution". The verdict was delivered by a bench of Justices Pankaj Mithal and R Mahadevan on November 26, as per PTI reports.

The court dismissed the plea of C Selvarani, who had challenged a Madras High Court decision from January 24 that denied her a Scheduled Caste (SC) certificate. Selvarani, born to a Hindu father and a Christian mother, was baptised as a Christian but later claimed to be Hindu to access reservation benefits for employment.