Women From Other States Not Entitled To SC Job Reservation Benefits After Marriage: Uttarakhand HC
The high court mentioned that even if the woman's community name is listed in both the states, reservation benefits cannot be availed.
Published : November 26, 2025 at 1:36 PM IST
Nainital: The Uttarakhand High Court on Wednesday clarified that women belonging to Scheduled Castes (SC) from other states, who have settled in Uttarakhand after marriage, will be ineligible for reservation benefits in state government jobs here.
A single bench of Justice Manoj Kumar Tiwari delivered the verdict while hearing a batch of petitions, including that of Anshu Sagar and several others. The court held that the right to reservation is region-specific and does not transfer with migration.
Petitioner, Anshu Sagar, originally from Uttar Pradesh's Moradabad district, was married to an SC individual in Uttarakhand. Sagar belongs to the Jatav community (an SC category in Uttar Pradesh). After marriage, she obtained an SC certificate and a Permanent Residence Certificate in Jaspur, Uttarakhand, and claimed reservation benefits in the teacher recruitment process for government primary school teachers. However, her claim was rejected by the department.
The state government argued that, as per the February 16, 2004, order and subsequent government notifications, the reservation benefit is only applicable to the native residents of Uttarakhand. The government argued that residents of neighbouring states, even if they successfully obtain caste certificates from Uttarakhand, would not be entitled to reservations in public employment. It argued that caste status is determined by birth, not marriage.
In its decision, the court cited prominent Supreme Court judgments including "Mary Chandra Shekhar Rao" and "Ranjana Kumari v. State of Uttarakhand." In these verdicts, the Supreme Court had already established the principle that the Scheduled Caste/Tribe list under Articles 341 and 342 of the Constitution is "with respect to that state." Therefore, a person considered an SC in one state cannot automatically acquire that status in another state.
The decision clarified that migration, whether voluntary or involuntary (such as due to marriage), does not entitle a person to reservation benefits in another state. The court stated that extending reservation benefits to migrants would violate the constitutional rights of the original SC/ST members of that state. A reserved category in one state will be treated as a general category in another, it added.
The court also observed that even if the caste name is the same in both states (the state of origin and the state of migration), reservation benefits cannot be availed. In Anshu Sagar's case, even if the 'Jatav' or 'Valmiki' caste is listed as SC in both states, a woman born in Uttar Pradesh cannot be entitled to the SC quota in Uttarakhand. Even the issuance of a caste certificate cannot mitigate the severity of the Supreme Court's Constitutional Bench decisions, it added.
On this basis, the court rejected the relief sought by the petitioners and dismissed their writ petitions. This decision sets a clear precedent for future candidates who migrate from other states and settle in Uttarakhand.
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