The Madras High Court has directed the Census Commissioner to take measures for conducting caste-wise Census in the country.
A Division Bench, comprising Acting Chief Justice Elipe Dharma Rao and Justice T.S. Sivagnanam, passed the order on a Public Interest Litigation petition filed by advocate R. Krishnamurthy. It said the relief sought for had been answered in the affirmative in an earlier judgment and allowed the petition.
In the previous order, the court had considered the aspect of conducting a caste-based enumeration in a writ petition. A Division Bench had held: “When it is the position that after 1931 there had never been any caste-wise enumeration or tabulation and when there cannot be any dispute that there is an increase in the population of SC/ST/OBC manifold after 1931, the percentage of reservation fixed on the basis of population in the year 1931 has to be proportionately increased by conducting caste-wise Census by the government.”
