New
Delhi:
The Supreme Court Friday agreed to hear a plea seeking direction to the Centre
for conducting a caste-wise 2021 census for backward classes for efficient
allocation of budgetary resources and excluding the ''creamy layer'' and ''non
backward class'' citizens from a particular caste.
A
bench of Chief Justice SA Bobe and Justices AS Bopanna and V Ramasubramanian
issued notice to the Centre and National Commission for Backward Classes (NCBC)
and tagged the matter along with other pending matters.
Advocate
GS Mani, appearing for petitioner G Mallesh Yadav, a Telangana based social
activist, said due to lack of caste wise survey, governments are facing a lot
of difficulties in sharing the budget to every caste in backward classes for
the lack of caste wise survey.
The
plea said that the number of backward castes and communities was 3,743 in the
initial list of Mandal Commission setup in 1979-80.
“The
number of backward castes in central list of OBCs has now increased to 5013 in
2006 as per national commission for backward classes but no survey has been
made by the government's caste wise,” the plea said.
It
said that as per the provisions reservation can be given to backward class and
citizens of that particular caste but ''creamy layer'' and ''non-backward class
of citizens'' in it have to be excluded.
“If
the caste is to be taken into consideration then for finding out socially and
economically backward class, creamy layer of the caste is to be eliminated for
granting benefit of reservation,” it said.
The
plea further said that central and state governments are also facing statutory
and legal hurdles in decision making for the purpose of allocation of seats to
backward classes in villages Panchayats and municipal bodies and Zila Parishads
in the absence of caste wise census of Backward Classes.
It
said that Centre is planning to conduct the census of the country in 2021 and
presently a proforma was released which containing 32 columns pertaining to the
details of the SC/STs, religions like Hindu, Muslim and Christian etc.
The
plea said that the proforma does not include columns for details of other
Backward Classes community.
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