Hyderabad: Pointing out that the state school education department has stated no child can be denied admission for not mentioning caste/religion and even the Census form allows people to not mention the two, the Telangana high court on Monday said there was no need for the court to pass any general order making provision for separate columns in official forms for irreligious people.
A bench of Chief Justice Alok Aradhe and Justice J Sreenivas Rao said this while disposing of a 2017 PIL by a couple, DV Ramakrishna Rao and Saladi Clarance Kripalini, seeking such a space in all formats of applications for admissions in academic institutions and jobs. The bench said it was not possible to issue any direction in this PIL in the absence of quantifiable data on aggrieved persons on whose behalf this petition had been filed.
Prior to the 2017 PIL, the two had first approached the HC in 2010 after St Ann’s High School in Tarnaka orally refused to admit their child in LKG for not furnishing religion and caste details. They sought separate space for non-religious people in the official formats to prevent illegal rejection of applications of children of such parents at schools and employment venues.
Following the HC’s intervention in April 2010, the school management admitted the child without insisting on caste and religion details. Their petition was subsequently dismissed in 2016 as they did not pursue the case.
Later in 2017, they filed the current PIL urging the court to issue directions to authorities to accord separate identity to those who say they do not have any caste or religion. They contended that the right to freely profess and propagate religion included a right to say one does not believe in any religion.
Their counsel D Suresh Kumar urged the court to direct the state and central authorities to provide an additional column in school admission forms, online examination form of Secondary School Certificate (SSC), school leaving transfer certificates and all education and employment enrolment forms and in Census forms to provide for a column namely “no religion, no caste”.
In response, state education authorities pointed out that in school leaving transfer certificates, admission forms, online examination forms of SSC there is an option to write ‘nil’ and people who do not believe in religion/caste are at liberty to write ‘no religion, no caste’.
Officials also said that Census enumerators have also been instructed to record ‘no religion, no caste’ if a person said he did not follow any religion.
The HC cited the submissions by the officials to close the case.
