Overview
- The Supreme Court dismissed a public interest litigation on May 20, 2026, that sought to exclude caste questions from the 2027 census, saying the issue falls within government policy and courts should not intervene.
- A bench led by Chief Justice Surya Kant said the government must know the number of people in backward classes to design welfare measures and framed the decision as a policy matter for the executive.
- The 2027 census is set to be India’s first fully digital population count and will include a comprehensive caste enumeration, the first such all-caste count since 1931.
- The petitioner, Sudhakar Gummula, warned that caste data could be misused by politicians or private actors and questioned the need for fresh collection, concerns the court acknowledged but said were matters for the government to address.
- With legal obstacles removed, attention now shifts to operational and policy questions including data security, verification procedures, the planned house-listing phase in April–September 2026, and how the findings could affect reservation and welfare policy.