New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday rejected a plea seeking a direction to the Centre to conduct a socio-economic caste census for the welfare of backward and other marginalised sections.
A bench comprising Justices Hrishikesh Roy and SVN Bhatti "What can be done about this? The issue is in the domain of governance. It is a policy matter”. The petitioner P Prasad Naidu was represented by senior advocate Ravishankar Jandyala and advocate Sravan Kumar Karanam. The counsel said several countries have done it but India is yet to do so and further argued that the Indra Sawhney judgement of 1992 (Mandal Commission verdict) has said that this census has to be done periodically. However, the bench was not convinced with the counsel’s contention. The petitioner had also sought a direction for expediting the enumeration of data for census. The petition was withdrawn from the apex court.
The plea said that Centre and its agencies have not conducted the enumeration for the Census-2021 till date and the enumeration of the census of the country for 2021 was initiated in April, 2019 but it was not concluded till date.
The plea contended that as per the official website of the Census of India, the first preparatory meeting for conducting Census 2021 was held on April 9, 2019.
The plea argued that the census is not just a population growth tracker, but it also provides a comprehensive socio-economic data of the people of the country. The plea stressed that it can be used in policy-making, economic planning and for various administrative purposes.
