PIL in Calcutta HC seeks deletion of the caste column in petition from

Kolkata, Dec 5 : A petition has been filed in the Calcutta High Court seeking removal of the caste column from the application form that a petitioner needs to fill while filing a petition at the court.The PIL has been filed with the division bench of Chief Justice Prakash Kumar Srivastava and Justice Rajarshi Bhardwaj by Vijay Kumar Singhal, wherein he questioned the existence of column No.

6 in Form A of presentation form, which makes it mandatory for the petitioner concerned to disclose his or her caste.In his petition, Singhal argued that it is unfortunate that even after 75 years of Independence, a citizen has to mention his caste while making an application to file a suit in the court.

The petitioner also argued that the presence of this caste column actually violates the right to personal freedom and privacy for a petitioner.The matter is likely to come up for hearing on Tuesday.

"The Constitution protects the rights of individuals to disclose his or her personal information.So, it is not desirable on the part of the court to ask a petitioner to divulge his caste at the time of filing a petition," said Phiroze Edulji, the counsel for Singhal.

The petitioner has identified himself as a social worker and vice-president of Sanjay Gandhi Memorial Trust.According to him, Calcutta High Court is the oldest high court in the country, which has made immense contributions in moving the society ahead according to the requirement of time.

"So, I feel that the Calcutta High Court should delete the caste column from the petitioners application form," he said.Last week, the same division bench had received a PIL demanding introduction of the provision of mothers name in the advocate enrolment form.

The petitioner, Mrinalini Majumdar, argued that the current advocate enrolment form, which every advocate has to fill to get enrolled for practice, has the provision of mentioning only the fathers name or husbands name.Pointing out that there is no provision of mentioning the mothers name, the petitioner pointed out that this is contrary to certain articles of the Indian Constitution.

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