CHENNAI: The Madras High Court has directed the Tiruvannamalai district administration not to display the names of caste on the streets/roads’ boards in Thesur town panchayat. A division bench of Justices S Manikumar and Subramonium Prasad gave this direction while passing orders on a PIL petition from A Venkatesan, recently.
According to advocate A Rajesh Kanna, there are 52 streets in Thesur, which had been named in memory of certain persons, including their caste names. It was contrary to the GO, dated October 3, 1978, of the Rural Development and Local Administration Department, he contended.
The Additional Government Pleader, who took notice on behalf of the respondents, submitted that a resolution had already been passed by the municipality for removing the caste tags from names of streets. Objections are being invited regarding the resolution, he added.
“There is no necessity to call for any objection from the members of the public. The mandate in the 1978 GO is extremely clear that wherever there is a reference to a caste, in the names of roads and streets, the same has to be removed,” the bench said and disposed of the writ petition.