The Supreme Court on Wednesday dismissed a PIL against the Centre’s decision to undertake caste enumeration as part of Census 2027.
A Bench of Chief Justice of India Surya Kant, Justice Joymalya Bagchi and Justice Vipul Pancholi said the issue fell within the policy domain of the government and courts could not intervene.
Petitioner Sudhakar Gummula — who appeared as a petitioner-in-person – wanted exclusion of caste enumeration in population census.
Gummula contended that collection of caste data could be susceptible to misuse, particularly if such information were to fall into the hands of corporate entities and politicians. According to him, there was no justification to collect caste data.
However, the CJI said, “These are all policy matters, whether the census should be caste-based or not. What is wrong with it? The Government must know how many people are in the backward class…what kind of welfare measures are to be taken for them. It’s within the policy domain."
The petitioner claimed that the Government already had plenty of data but the Bench wasn’t impressed. “This is a policy matter. No reason to intervene. Dismissed," the Bench said.
Exercising its powers under Section 3 of the Census Act, 1948, the Union Government had in June 2025 notified the conduct of Census 2027.
The 2027 Census — officially the 16th national census — will be the first to include comprehensive caste enumeration since 1931 and the country’s first fully digital census.
On February 2, the Supreme Court had refused to entertain a PIL questioning the procedure to be adopted to record, classify and verify the caste data of citizens in the 2027 general census.
However, it had asked the Centre and the office of the Registrar General and Census Commissioner, India, to consider the suggestions made by PIL petitioner Aakash Goel, an academician, on the issue.
