PMK MLA J. Guru has approached the Madras high court to declare illegal the direction by the Union and state governments to enumerators to specifically record the caste for SC/ST alone by verifying the name of the caste from the list furnished to them while directing them to record the name of the caste
for others without verifying.
A division bench of Justices C.S. Karnan and K. Ravichandra Babu directed the counsel for the Central and state governments to get instructions and posted further hearing of the case after a week.
Petitioner’s counsel K. Balu submitted that the socio economic and caste census 2011 was being carried out by the Union government to collect information based on social and economic indicators across the country.
It had issued instructions to enumerators that a person should be reckoned as belonging to SC/ST only after ascertaining the name of the caste or tribe.
However, for others the caste should be recorded as reported by the person, it said.
Such a mechanical recording of the caste without even actually ascertaining the actual name of the caste serves no purpose and also wastes public money.
If the data was not collected castewise, it may not be possible to classify the caste at a later stage, he said.