Indian couple in UK approach court over ’caste discrimination’

A young Hindu-Sikh couple in Britain has claimed 'caste discrimination', saying they were forced out of their jobs following their inter-caste marriage

Indian couple in UK approach court over 'caste discrimination'

A young Hindu-Sikh couple in Britain has claimed 'caste discrimination', saying they were forced out of their jobs following their inter-caste marriage.

An employment tribunal was told that solicitor Amardeep Begraj, 33, was warned against marrying Vijay, a 32-year-old Dalit, who was working as a practice manager, the Daily Mail reports.

Begraj has told the tribunal that a senior colleague asked her not to marry Vijay, saying people of his caste were 'different creatures.'

"He said I should reconsider the step I was taking of marrying Vijay because people of his caste were different creatures," the paper quoted, Begraj, as saying.

"Marriage would be very different from dating.u00a0 Vijay was told a number of times that his position had been compromised for entering into a relationship with me," she added.

Begraj, a Sikh, of the Jat caste, met her husband while working at Coventry-based solicitors Heer Manak and began dating four years later.

She also claimed that her workload increased and secretarial support was reduced 'as a punishment', and she was paid less than her colleagues.

The couple married at a gurdwara in Warwickshire three years ago, when a colleague raised a toast to 'Jat girls going down the drain'.

Vijay who worked as a practice manager for the firm for seven years, was sacked last year and his wife resigned in January, the paper said.

The tribunal has denied the couple's claims calling them 'outrageous'.

In the wake of the case, British Home Secretary Theresa May is considering whether to add protection to those discriminated because of their caste to existing safeguards governing race, sex, religion and sexuality in British equality law.