Revenue officials can issue ‘no caste, no community’ certificates: Madras High Court

Madras High Court orders State Government to empower revenue officials to issue ‘no caste, no community’ certificates, promoting equality

The Madras High Court has called upon the Tamil Nadu government to issue a Government Order (G.O.) empowering the revenue officials to issue ‘no caste, no community’ certificates to individuals who prefer not to be identified with any religion or caste.

A Division Bench of Justices M.S. Ramesh and N. Senthilkumar said, the very intention of a person to shun religious and caste based identity was a “laudable” move which, in the long run, would promote prohibition of caste based discrimination.

The orders were passed while reversing an order passed by a single judge who had, in February 2024, refused to direct the Tirupattur Tahsildar to issue ‘no caste, no community’ certificate to an applicant since the revenue officials had not been empowered to issue such a certificate.

The single judge had appreciated the desire of the applicant H. Vinoth to obtain a certificate from a revenue official certifying that he does not belong to any religion or caste, but refused to issue any such direction to the Tahsildar since the latter lacked the authority to issue the certificate.

Allowing a writ appeal filed by Mr. Vinoth against the single judge’s order, the Division Bench said, the single judge appeared to have been “misguided” by the stand of an Additional Government Pleader that revenue officials were not empowered to issue ‘no caste, no community’ certificates.

The Division Bench said, the government counsel’s stand was paradoxical since at least three copies of ‘no caste, no community’ certificates issued by the Tirupattur Tahsildar on February 5, 2019, Coimbatore Tahsildar on May 27, 2022, and Ambattur Tahsildar on August 18, 2022, had been produced before the court.

“Even otherwise, when there is a constitutional mandate under Article 25 (freedom of conscience and free profession, practice and propagation of religion) of the Constitution, the revenue authorities cannot wriggle out of this constitutional obligation by quoting absence of any rule or G.O. to that effect,” the Bench said.