Supreme Court Refuses PIL On Caste Data Procedure In 2027 Census

The Supreme Court on Monday refused to entertain a PIL questioning the procedure to be adopted to record, classify and verify the caste data of citizens in the 2027 general census.

However, the top court requested that the Centre and the office of the Registrar General and Census Commissioner, India, take into account the recommendations made on the matter by academician and PIL petitioner Aakash Goel.

Goel, represented by senior attorney Mukta Gupta, said a transparent questionnaire, to be utilised for recording, classifying and validating the caste details of the individuals, has to be posted in the public domain.

The senior counsel claimed that "notwithstanding the acknowledgement that caste enumeration has extended beyond the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled tribes this time," the Directorate of Census Operations has not revealed the standards for documenting persons' caste identities.

The PIL petitioner was informed by the bench that there is "no pre-determined data" to identify the caste data.

“The census exercise is regulated under the Census Act, 1958, and the 1990 Rules framed thereunder, which empowers the respondent authorities to determine the particulars and manner of census operations,” the bench noted.

“We have no reason to doubt that the respondent authority, with the aid and assistance of domain experts, must have evolved a robust mechanism to rule out any mistake as apprehended by the petitioner and several like-minded persons. We find the petitioner has raised some relevant issues through representation to the Registrar General of Census operations …as well,” the CJI said.

The bench said authorities may consider the suggestions raised in the legal notice and the petition and dispose of the PIL.

The 2027 Census, officially the 16th national census, will be the first to include comprehensive caste enumeration since 1931 and the country's first fully digital census.