Lucknow : The Uttar Pradesh government on Monday announced a complete ban on caste-based references in police records and public spaces, acting on directives from the Allahabad High Court aimed at curbing caste discrimination in the state. Chief Secretary Deepak Kumar instructed all departments that caste will no longer be mentioned in First Information Reports (FIRs), arrest memos, or other police documents.
Caste-based rallies have been prohibited, with police tasked to monitor social media platforms strictly to prevent violations. The government clarified that exceptions would apply in cases filed under the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, where caste identification remains a legal necessity. The High Court, in its recent ruling, had said that recording caste in FIRs, arrest memos, seizure memos or police notice boards amounted to identity profiling rather than objective investigation, reinforcing prejudice and undermining constitutional values.
Acting on these directions, the Home Department on September 21 issued a 10-point order to all police and administrative authorities. It records that the move is in direct compliance with the court’s mandate. Reacting to the order, Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav posted on X questioning whether administrative steps would be enough to tackle deep-rooted social prejudice.
He asked: “What will be done to eliminate caste bias entrenched for 5,000 years in the mind? How will discrimination through clothing, symbols, or the mentality of asking one’s caste before their name be addressed? What measures will end practices like forcing someone to wash their house because of caste, or conspiracies that defame people with false, caste-driven allegations?”
In its order, the High Court had noted that caste identifiers are reappearing in public and online spaces, calling it a coded assertion of social power that undermines constitutional values. While ordering the removal of the caste column in investigating documents and other records, the court had also said that law enforcement agencies were not immune to social biases. A bench headed by Justice Vinod Diwakar had asked the state to prepare a regulatory framework to amend the Central Motor Vehicle Rules to ban caste-based slogans and identifiers on all vehicles.
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