Supreme Court rejects PIL seeking direction for creating 'Gandhi' caste

A PIL by a freedom fighter seeking a direction to the Centre and state governments that children born to couples having inter-caste marriages be recognised under one caste "Gandhi" has been dismissed by the Supreme Court.

A bench comprising Chief Justice P Sathasivam and Ranjan Gogoi, however, said that 86-year-old Gandhian Salem Velu Gandhi alias C Velu, who had contended that the step would help create a casteless society, was free to make representation to the government for appropriate remedy. "Heard the petitioner (Velu), who is appearing in person and perused the relevant material. We are not inclined to go into the issue raised by the petitioner. The writ petition is, accordingly, dismissed. However, the petitioner is free to make a representation to the Government for appropriate remedy," the bench said.

The PIL said that for creation of a caste-less society, there should be only one 'Gandhi' caste and the children, born out of inter-caste marriages, should not suffer because of the old caste system.

The babies do not carry any special mark of the caste when they take birth and it is the society which labels them, it said.

The entire Hindu population is divided into over 9,500 castes and even Muslims have various sub-castes and the discrimination on the basis of the castes have been the root cause of the prolonged slavery of the country in the past, it said.