’No caste, no religion certificate to be issued within 2 weeks’

CHENNAI: Justice Abdul Quddhose of Madras High Court has directed Ambattur Tahsildar to issue within two weeks a “No Caste No Religion” certificate to a three-year-old son of a petitioner who had done inter-caste marriage in 2015.

The judge passed the direction on disposing of a petition filed by J Manoj, father of the three-year-old kid. The petitioner sought direction from the court to Ambattur Tahsildar to issue a “No Caste No Religion” certificate for his son to admit him to school.

Manoj submitted that he belongs to the scheduled caste and married a woman who belongs to the backward caste and had a child in 2019. When he tried to admit the kid to a school, he was in a position to fill the column to disclose his caste in the application form.

As he wanted to raise his son in a casteless and religion-free society, he made a representation to Ambattur Tahsildar to issue a No Caste - No Religion certificate. As he did not provide the certificate, he filed the petition.

“Even the Tamil Nadu government aims to provide for a casteless society by introducing various schemes such as Equality Village Housing Scheme (Samathuvapuram), '' the petitioner submitted through his counsel J Deliban.

He further highlighted a GO issued by the State government in February 2021 to issue the No Caste - No Religion certificate.

“When we approached Ambattur Tahsildar for a No Caste, No Religion certificate, the authorities said they were unaware of the practice of issuing such certificates. We informed the officer that Tiruppattur Tahsildar had issued a No Caste, No Religion certificate in 2019 and a Coimbatore couple had also obtained such a certificate recently, ” he added.

The petitioner further wanted the state to issue a circular to all the revenue offices to issue a No Caste-No Religion certificate based on the GO.

Recording the submissions, the judge directed Ambattur Tahsildar to issue the No Caste – No Religion certificate within two weeks.