Madhya Pradesh: High court bans use of the word 'Dalit', says its against constitution
Correspondent
NewsBits.in
GWALIOR: The Gwalior bench of the MP High Court has put a ban on use of the word ‘Dalit’ especially in the government documents and works.
The decision of the High Court bench came during hearing of public interest litigation (PIL) by one Dr Mohan Lal Mahour.
In the PIL, the petitioner had said that the constitution has no mention of the word ‘dalit’.
The persons belonging to different categories have been termed as either ‘scheduled caste’ or ‘scheduled tribes’. In such situation, the use of word dalit in government documents, schemes and plans is against the constitution of India.
Hearing the petition, the High Court bench ordered that the word ‘dalit’ should not be used in documents of any government, semi-government or non-government departments.
Only the terminologies mentioned in constitution should be used for any official work. The lawyer of the petitioner has said that the order of the High Court would be implemented in entire state.
The word ‘dalit’ is being currently widely used across the state and the country to address the members of the scheduled caste communities. Many government documents and schemes also use the term, making it more generally used than the term scheduled caste.
