The Supreme Court on Thursday provided clarification regarding its recent directive to remove the “caste” column and any other caste references from the records of undertrials and convicts in jails. Chief Justice D.Y. Chandrachud, alongside Justices J.B. Pardiwala and Manoj Misra, confirmed that this move would not obstruct the National Crime Records Bureau’s (NCRB) data collection efforts.
This clarification comes in the wake of an October 3 landmark verdict where the court deemed caste-based discrimination in prisons—such as the segregation of labor and barracks along caste lines and biases against prisoners from de-notified tribes and habitual offenders—as unconstitutional. The decision targeted the jail manual rules of ten states that perpetuated such biases.
Senior Advocate S. Muralidhar, representing the petitioner whose plea led to the verdict, raised concerns that the court’s earlier ruling might impede NCRB’s ongoing data collection. Additional Solicitor General Aishwarya Bhati, representing the Ministry of Home Affairs, supported the need for clarification, which the bench acknowledged should ideally have come from the NCRB itself.
The justices reiterated their stance from the October ruling, emphasizing that the “right to live with dignity” must extend to all individuals, even those incarcerated. Following this principle, the Centre and the states involved were directed to revise their prison manuals and laws within three months to eradicate discriminatory practices and report compliance to the Supreme Court.
