SELF-DECLARATION CANNOT BE ENOUGH FOR CASTE CENSUS ENUMERATION, AND REPRESENTATION BEFORE THE DIRECTORATE OF CENSUS OPERATIONS FOUND NECESSARY BY THE HONOURABLE SUPREME COURT

Supreme Court has recorded its agreement with a petitioner that mere self-declaration of the caste identity by an individual during the proposed caste enumeration in 2027 could not help in accurate determination of SC, ST and OBC population. Senior Advocate, while appearing before the honourable Court of CJI Shri Surya kant and justice joymalya Bagchi told that the directorate of census operations, which has commenced preparatory work for the census 2027,has not disclosed, any predetermined criteria or the standardised methodology, required for recording the caste identity of people belonging to the SC, ST and OBC categories during the census. It further revealed that caste enumeration would play a big role in devising and implementation of social social welfare measures, reservations in government employment and admissions to educational Institutional and delimitations of the parliamentary and assembly constituencies, it should be scientifically foolproof in gathering data , and the CJI led bench said, that in principle, we agree with you , but it is the job of the experts, and it is for them to devise the mode and the way caste enumeration is to be carried out. Thought the bench did not entertain the petition, it asked the senior Advocate appearing before the Court to give the petition in the form of representation to the Directorate of census operations for further necessary action. In its order, the bench said " We have no reasons to doubt that the respondent authorities, with the aid and assistance of domain experts must have evolved a robust mechanism in order to rule out any mistake (in caste enumeration) as apprehended by the petitioner " Er Fateh chand Guleria, Director RTI welfare Association registered number HPCD, 3552 , Bilaspur Himachal pradesh phone number, 9459334377