A PIL has been filed in the Madras High Court seeking to direct Tamil Nadu government to remove caste names prefixed or suffixed in the names of government and government-aided educational institutions across the state.
When the matter came up for hearing today, the First Bench comprising Acting Chief Justice Rajesh Kumar Agrawal and Justice M Sathyanarayanan ordered issuing of notice to Chief Secretary and Education Secretary returnable by September 10.
Advocate S Saravanan in his PIL contended that the prevailing caste system was the biggest challenge before a state to achieve the constitutional mandate to secure and protect social order in all the institutions.
Alleging that the caste system, deeply rooted in culture, language and custom was the cause of all kinds of corruption, exploitation and violence in our country, he also mentioned several names of educational institutions with the caste names and it was not warranted.
Naming an educational institution after a caste would surely perpetuate caste system he said, adding, the government was duty bound to eradicate caste and surnames of the educational institutions he said.
He further sought a direction to government to remove caste names to the educational institutions run as well as aided by the government.
