Bengaluru, Nov. 15 -- 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 absence of objective data establishing social and educational backwardness and the alleged disregard of recommendations made by expert commissions. "There is nothing axiomatic or eternal about one's OBC status. A clear case has to be made out for inclusion or retention in the OBC list." "Merely because some entities have enjoyed the privilege of reservation for a few decades, would that necessarily mean that the original inclusion was constitutionally justified? We answer in the negative," the high court said. "As and when a challenge is mounted, the Government is obliged to demonstrate to the Court's satisfaction that inclusion or retention of the concerned entity in the OBC list is constitutionally warranted or justified," it said. The court questioned the constitutional basis for granting OBC reservation benefits to Christian communities and converts in Tamil Nadu, observing that in such cases, "even a Brahmin could claim such benefits by converting to Christianity and joining the Church of South India (CSI)." It added that if such a possibility were true, it required a "serious re-examination" of the state's reservation framework....