NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court has sought the Centre’s response in a plea seeking caste-based census for Other Backward Classes in the upcoming Census.
A bench of CJI DY Chandrachud and Justice PS Narasimha also issued a notice to the ministry of social justice and empowerment in the plea that has said the government, due to the absence of caste-based census of the OBCs, wasn’t able to extend the benefits of welfare schemes with them.
“Concrete policies cannot be formulated in the absence of concrete data,” the petition, filed by advocate Krishna Kanhaiya Pal, said.
It added that although the then Union home minister, Rajnath Singh, had said that a census of the OBCs would be conducted during the 2021 Census, the government refrained from tabling the same before the Rohini Commission. The panel, headed by former Delhi High Court judge, G Rohini, was set up in 2017 to sub-categorise the OBC communities to ensure that the benefits of reservation reach all of them.
Pal in his plea added that the opponents of caste enumeration lack any novel argument. “They are replicating the same fear psychosis that it will breed casteism, divide society, and increase the existing caste-based quotas, which has been used against every other progressive measure centred around caste,” the petition further said.