Supreme Court allows petitioner seeking pre-loaded drop-down caste menu in Census to approach Registrar General

Registrar General & Census Commissioner of India, Mritunjay Kumar Narayan. File

The Supreme Court on Wednesday (October 28, 2026) gave the OBC Federation of India liberty to approach the Registrar General and Census Commissioner of India (RGCCI) with their petition for a pre-loaded drop-down menu of recognised Other Backward Classes (OBC) in the digital tools for Census 2027.

Caste is enumerated in the second phase of the Census. Appearing before a Bench headed by the Chief Justice of India Surya Kant, the counsel appearing for the federation said the second stage of Census 2027 was about to commence.

The federation argued that Article 342A of the Constitution recognises and mandates for Socially and Educationally Backward Classes (SEBCs).

“There are three lists — Scheduled Castes (SCs), Scheduled Tribes (STs), and the SEBCs,” the counsel submitted.

“Decisions on a granular level of Census operation will be done as a part of policy making… There is nothing constitutional about it… The Census does not address constitutional classification,” Justice Joymalya Bagchi observed orally.

Article 342A had specifically identified SEBCs, the counsel pointed out. Over ₹11,000 crore had been budgeted for Census 2027, but a drop-down menu was lacking, he said.

Column 10 in the population enumeration schedule, notified in August 2026, requires caste details to be filled in, the petition said. Except for SCs and STs, the column provides an open text field to manually fill up caste and sub-caste details.

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A drop-down menu must be provided for individuals to select from a regularised list of OBC castes, the petitioner said. The open-ended filling up of caste details had led to inaccuracies in caste enumeration carried out under the Socio-Economic and Caste Census (SECC) in 2011, the petition said.

“This issue has to be addressed by way of policy-making,” the CJI said. The court disposed of the case, recording that the petition should be considered by the Census authorities as a representation.

court / judiciary (system of justice) / Census 2027