The Supreme Court on Monday (April 29) adjourned until September public interest litigations (PILs) seeking enumeration of Other Backward Classes (OBCs) in the national Census.

The matter was before a Bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Dipankar Datta, which directed that the same be listed in the week commencing September 9.

Notably, one of the PILs (ie Tinku Saini v. Union of India) was originally filed seeking enumeration of OBCs in the Census scheduled for 2021(which is yet to take place). According to the petitioner, the last census was conducted in 1931 and no census enlisting the exact number of OBCs had been carried out thereafter, leading to miscarriage of social justice and denial of the constitutional mandate of Article 15(4), Article 16(14), Article 243 D and Article 243 T of the Constitution.

In 2020, a Bench headed by then Chief Justice of India SA Bobde issued notice on the plea and sought response from the Centre and National Commission for Backward Classes (NCBC). However, in view of the Covid-19 pandemic, Census 2021 was postponed.

Case Title: Tinku Saini v. Union of India and Ors., WP(C) 901/2020 (and connected matters)

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