A bench of Justice Hrishikesh Roy & Justice SVN Bhatti refused to entertain a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) petition seeking the conduct of a Social & Caste Based Census. The judges dismissed the matter on the ground that it is a policy matter and the top court is not inclined to interfere in the matter. Justice Roy asked when the matter was taken up "What is this? This is in the domain of governance. What can we do?". The petitioner’s counsel referred to Indra Sawhney Judgement and said that this has to be done. He also added that 94 countries have already taken this up. However, the judges stood their ground and kept on insisting on the fact that the said issue is a policy matter.
Indra Sawhney Judgement is a landmark ruling that capped the reservation at not more than 50%. The same was also upheld in the 2021 Maratha reservation case. The issue of social and caste census has risen up a few times in the past few months. Most recently when the Bihar government decided to do a census, it was challenged in the Patna High Court and was upheld. Later, it was appealed before the SC which is now pending. In 2021, the SC also disallowed the then Maharashtra govt. to release the social and caste data recorded in 2011 to conduct a census.
The petitioner argued that the move was needed to streamline welfare measures in the country targeted for the most marginalised. Eventually, the matter was withdrawn.
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