Daily News Analysis ‘National Caste Census and Policy Domain ’ : 21 May

Why in News:

• The Supreme Court dismissed a plea against including caste data in the Census, ruling that collecting backwardness data for welfare schemes is strictly an executive policy decision.

Caste Census Core Facts:

• Legal Authority: The national census is an exclusive Union subject listed under Serial Number 69 of the Union List (Seventh Schedule) and is governed by the Census Act, 1948.
• Two-Phase Process: It is carried out in two distinct stages: Phase 1 covers the House Listing Operation (HLO) to assess housing assets, and Phase 2 covers Population Enumeration (PE) to capture demographic, socio-economic, and cultural details.
• Historical Shift: While every census from 1881 to 1931 tracked all castes, independent India (from 1951 to 2011) modified the policy to systematically count only Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs).
• OBC Data Gap: Full caste enumeration aims to provide accurate, updated data on Other Backward Classes (OBCs) to replace the outdated 1931 data used for reservations and targeted welfare delivery.
• Administrative Clearance: The inclusion of full caste data in the current exercise was cleared by the Cabinet Committee on Political Affairs (CCPA) to act as an objective metric for identifying social backwardness.
• Judicial Stand: The Supreme Court (SC) reconfirmed that framing census questions falls completely under the government’s policy domain, meaning courts cannot interfere unless it breaches constitutional mandates.