MADURAI: The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court recently held that private educational institutions and firms in the state cannot mandatorily collect caste details in application forms.
A bench of justices CV Karthikeyan and R Sakthivel gave the direction on a PIL petition filed by N Vikraman of Virudhunagar district. Vikraman alleged that many private colleges require applicants to disclose their caste and community details for enrolment, though there is no statutory requirement for such disclosure.
Claiming that compulsory collection of the details may lead to discrimination in selection and admission processes, he requested the court to prohibit the institutions and companies from collecting those details.
‘None can mandatorily collect caste details’
When the case was heard by the above bench recently, the judges noted that the same issue came up for consideration before the Principal Seat in 2016 and the court had disposed off the said matter in view of a GO passed by the school education department in 2000.
The said GO permitted parents to not mention their caste or religion in their kids’ school certificates by enabling them to state ‘No Religion, No Caste’ against those columns.
However, Vikraman’s counsel still apprehended that if the caste is not mentioned, the candidate would be discriminated. Following this, the bench disposed off the plea by issuing a direction that no private educational institution or private employer within TN can mandatorily collect caste details.
