New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday refused to hear a petition questioning the process to be adopted for recording, classifying, and categorizing the caste data of citizens in the 2027 general census.
The matter came up for hearing before a bench of Justices Surya Kant and Joymalya Bagchi. Senior Advocate Mukta Gupta appeared for the petitioner. The Supreme Court directed the Centre and the office of the Registrar General and Census Commissioner to consider the suggestions of the petitioner, Akash Goel, an academician, regarding the issue.
The petitioner had contended that a transparent questionnaire framework should be put in place for recording, classifying, and verifying the caste information of citizens. The petitioner’s counsel argued that the Directorate of Census Operations has not disclosed the criteria for recording the caste identity of citizens, “despite acknowledging that this time the caste enumeration has gone beyond Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes.”
The bench observed that there is no pre-determined data for identifying caste data. The bench said, “The census operation is governed by the Census Act, 1958 and the rules framed thereunder in 1990, which empower the respondent authorities to determine the modalities and methodology of the census operation.”
“We have no reason to doubt that the respondent authorities would have devised a robust system with the help of domain experts to address any concerns raised by the petitioner and many like-minded individuals.”
The Chief Justice of India said, “We feel that the petitioner has also raised some pertinent issues by making a representation to the Registrar General of Census Operations.” The Supreme Court directed the concerned authorities to consider the suggestions made in the legal notice and the petition and disposed of the public interest litigation. The 2027 census, which is officially the 16th National Census, will be the first since 1931 to include a complete caste count and will be the country’s first fully digital census.
