The Supreme Court today has declined to entertain a plea seeking directions to include denotified, nomadic and semi-nomadic tribes in the upcoming census exercise, holding that the issue of classification and enumeration falls within the policy domain of the government.

The petitioners had urged the Court to direct the authorities to include a specific question in the census to enumerate persons belonging to denotified tribes, arguing that the absence of such data perpetuates historical disadvantage stemming from their earlier classification under colonial-era laws.

During the hearing, it was contended that several expert committees and government reports had recommended a dedicated census exercise for these communities, and the failure to include them in the ongoing census would delay meaningful recognition for another decade.

However, the Bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi expressed reservations about issuing such directions, noting that decisions regarding classification and enumeration are matters of executive policy.

“The classification essentially falls in the policy domain… it is not a justiciable issue…Acceptance of this report or rejection is purely a policy domain.”

Declining to issue directions under Article 32, the Court disposed of the petition, granting liberty to the petitioners to pursue their representations before the appropriate authorities.

“We dispose of the petition with liberty to pursue the representation before the competent authority.”