PolicyCensus 2027
Supreme Court asks Centre how caste claims will be checked in Census 2027
A public interest petition says people can write any caste on the census form. The bench wants the Solicitor General to explain the procedure and whether certificates are verified.
Key points
- The court asked the Centre to place the standard operating procedure for Census 2027 before it.
- The petitioner says caste is being recorded on self-declaration alone, without checking certificates.
- The bench did not issue formal notice on the petition.
The Supreme Court on Monday asked the Centre to explain how caste will be recorded and checked in Census 2027, on a petition that says the count relies on whatever people write on the form.
The bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant, Justice Joymalya Bagchi and Justice V. Mohana asked Solicitor General Tushar Mehta to place on record the standard operating procedure being followed for the census, along with a note on how caste is declared. It did not issue formal notice on the petition.
The petition
The public interest petition, filed by Aakash Goel, challenges the way caste data is being collected under Item 10 of the Census notification of 14 August 2026. It asks the government to disclose its method and safeguards, to set up a way to record and check caste certificate details, and to bar the use of the census caste data as the only basis for reservation or welfare decisions until a verifiable process is in place.
Senior Advocate Mukta Gupta, for the petitioner, said errors in the census could shape welfare schemes and budgets for a decade or more. “Whatever you want to give, you can fill in whatever,” she said. “They have to show guidelines. That what should be the basis of entering it.” She said an RTI request seeking this information had gone unanswered.
What the bench asked
The Chief Justice first observed: “Government authorities don’t collect information merely on form basis.” The bench then asked the Solicitor General to explain how a person declares OBC, ST or other status, whether a caste certificate must be attached, who issues it and how its genuineness is checked. The Chief Justice said verification mattered so that genuine claimants were not harmed by fake certificates.
The petitioner was told to give a copy of the petition to the Solicitor General. No next date was announced.