SC refuses entertain plea for OBC drop-down menu in Census 2027

The Supreme Court on Wednesday refused to entertain a plea seeking a direction to introduce a pre-loaded drop-down menu for OBC castes in the digital enumeration tools for Census 2027 instead of requiring individuals to manually enter their caste.

A bench of Chief Justice of India (CJI) Surya Kant and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V Mohana said the issue pertains to a policy decision.

“We dispose of this petition while granting liberty to the petitioner to approach Registrar General and Census Commissioner to whom a copy of this petition may be sent as representation,” the bench said. The counsel appearing for the petitioner, OBC Federation of India, submitted that a drop-down menu may be added to the digital census that is being conducted.

The Registrar General of India (RGI) has decided to use an “open-ended question on caste” rather than a drop-down menu for the caste census to be conducted alongside the population enumeration phase of the Census.