India, Nov. 14 -- The Madras high court has held that a community's inclusion in the Other Backward Classes (OBC) list cannot be treated as permanent or automatically justified "merely because it has enjoyed reservation benefits for decades."

A bench of Justices GR Swaminathan and MD Sumathi said on November 12 that the Tamil Nadu government must "demonstrate the constitutional validity of a community's inclusion" or "continued retention" in the list whenever someone challenges its classification.

Finding a prima facie case for examining the constitutional validity of reservation benefits extended to several Christian communities and converts in Tamil Nadu, the bench said the challenged classifications "raised serious doubts" over the a...