How can Registrar of Societies register caste-based associations, asks Madras High Court

Madras High Court examines legality of caste-based associations under Societies Registration Acts, aiming for a casteless society.

The Madras High Court has embarked on an exercise to find out whether associations carrying the name of a particular caste and having bylaws to admit only members belonging to that caste could be allowed to be registered as a society either under the Societies Registration Act of 1860, a central enactment, or the Tamil Nadu Societies Registration Act of 1975.

Justice D. Bharatha Chakravarthy said it was an irony that such caste based associations ran schools across the State and ended up teaching ‘Mahakavi’ Subramania Bharathiyar’s famous Tamil poem that “there is no such thing called caste and that it is a sin to speak about caste based hierarchy.” The observations were made while hearing a writ petition filed by South Indian Senguntha Mahajana Sangam.

“Even though every citizen of India has the right to form an association under Article 19 of the Constitution and even persons belonging to a particular caste can form an association, the question remains whether the association can be formed in the caste’s name and whether its goal can be to perpetuate the caste. This is the issue to be decided by this court,” the judge wrote.

Stating that societies could certainly be formed and registered under the two enactments for scientific and charitable purposes that had been expressly mentioned in those laws, the judge requested Advocate General P.S. Raman to find out by February 25 as to whether associations with a caste name and having bylaws in the nature of perpetuating caste system could be registered.

“I am of the view that the Constitution aims at a casteless society. It has been expressly held by the honourable Supreme Court in Ashoka Kumar Thakur versus Union of India (2008) that this is the constitutional goal, and that perpetuation of caste can never be permitted,” the judge said and lamented the display of names of caste-based associations even on the name boards of educational institutions run by them.