Recently, the Supreme Court issued a general order ordering its registry, all High Courts, and lower courts to cease referencing plaintiffs’ castes or religions in court documents. Judges Hima Kohli and Ahsanuddin Amanullah noted that the practice has to be avoided and put an end to right away.
“We see no reason for mentioning the caste/religion of any litigant either before this Court or the courts below. Such a practice is to be shunned and must be ceased forthwith … A direction is also issued to all the High Courts to ensure that the caste/religion of a litigant does not appear in the memo of parties in any petition/suit/proceeding filed before the High Court or the Subordinate Courts under their respective jurisdictions,” the Court ordered.
While granting a transfer petition in a marital dispute that was pending before a Rajasthani family court, the judge issued the ruling. The Supreme Court was taken aback to see that the husband and wife’s castes had been referenced in the parties’ correspondence, even though they had agreed to the case’s transfer to a family court in Punjab. The attorney representing the wife, one of the parties who had filed the transfer petition, told the Supreme Court that since this information had already been included in the case papers filed at the family court, he was forced to bring up the parties’ caste in the case papers submitted to the court.
The attorney clarified that he would have run the danger of having the Supreme Court’s registry object due to differences in the case information between the case documents submitted before the family court and the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court subsequently issued a special ruling prohibiting the mention of a party’s caste or religion in any legal proceeding, even if that information were raised in lower courts.
The Court directed that the Court’s registry and attorneys be informed of these instructions so that they can be followed right away. “A copy of this order shall be placed before the Registrar concerned for perusal and for circulation to the Registrar Generals of all the High Courts for strict compliance,” the Court added. In the transfer petition, petitioner Umang Shankar, advocate Vidyut Kayarkar, and advocate Aniket Jain represented the petitioner. For the responder, none were visible. Similarly, Justices Abhay S. Oka and Pankaj Mithal of a different bench had similarly voiced their displeasure with a litigant’s caste data appearing in a Rajasthan High Court ruling. The panel had noted that an accused person’s caste or religion should never be mentioned in the title of the ruling since it has no bearing on the court’s decision in that case.