CPI(M) flags concern over Census Rules in a letter to President

1. At a Glance

• What it is: CPI(M) general secretary M.A. Baby wrote to President Droupadi Murmu. He asked her to intervene and get the Centre to withdraw amendments to the Census Rules that allow private individuals to be hired as census enumerators [1].
• Core concern: The rules give States and Union Territories open-ended power to appoint "any person they consider suitable". He says this could lead to "arbitrary and politically motivated appointments" [1].
• Second concern: The Census questionnaire must not become "another SIR" or "an instrument of surveillance, citizenship determination or electoral exclusion" [1].
• UPSC relevance: The issue touches census administration, data integrity, federalism (discretion given to States/UTs), the right to privacy, and the links between the Census, electoral rolls and citizenship (GS-II).

2. Why in the News

• On 21 October 2026 (The Hindu, Page 5, International edition) it was reported that the CPI(M) had written to the President opposing the Census Rules amendments [1].
• The trigger was a set of amendments that widen who can be deployed for Census work [1]:
• Teachers of aided and unaided private educational institutions.
• Employees of institutions, societies and trusts.
• Officials and clerical staff of PSUs, statutory bodies, banks and companies.
• A residual power for State governments / UT administrations to appoint "any person they consider suitable".

3. Background & Evolution

• Legal framework [2]: The Census is run under the Census Act, 1948, with procedure set out in the Census Rules, 1990, framed under the Act. Both are central laws. The amendments at issue change the Rules [1].
• Traditional practice [2]: Enumerators have mostly been government employees, especially government school teachers, put on census duty by State and district authorities.
• Census 2027 context [2]: The decadal Census due in 2021 was postponed (COVID-19). The next round is Census 2027, notified in June 2025:
• Reference date: 1 March 2027.
• 1 October 2026 for snow-bound areas such as Ladakh, J&K, Himachal and Uttarakhand.

• It is planned as the first digital census and includes caste enumeration.

• Related controversy: The letter mentions SIR (Special Intensive Revision) of electoral rolls. This refers to the Election Commission's revision exercises in 2025–26, criticised by Opposition parties over alleged exclusion of voters [1].

4. Core Static Facts

Item	Fact
Petitioner	M.A. Baby, General Secretary, CPI(M) [1]
Addressee	President Droupadi Murmu [1]
Instrument challenged	Amendments to the Census Rules [1] (Census Rules, 1990 [2])
Parent Act	Census Act, 1948 [2]
Constitutional entry	Census: Union List, Entry 69, Seventh Schedule [2]
Administering body	Office of the Registrar General & Census Commissioner, India, under the Ministry of Home Affairs [2]
New categories of enumerators	Private aided/unaided school teachers; staff of institutions, societies and trusts; PSU, statutory body, bank and company staff [1]
New discretionary power	States/UTs may appoint "any person they consider suitable" [1]
Relief sought	President to ask the Centre to withdraw the amendments [1]

5. Multi-Dimensional Analysis

Legal / Constitutional

• The Census is a Union subject [2]. Census Rules are delegated legislation that the Centre can amend without Parliament passing a new law. This raises questions about parliamentary scrutiny of subordinate legislation.
• Under Article 74 [2], the President acts on the advice of the Council of Ministers. A political appeal to the President therefore carries moral and persuasive weight, not binding force.
• Fears of "citizenship determination" [1] connect to the Census–NPR–NRC debate and the right to privacy recognised in K.S. Puttaswamy (2017) [2].

Ethical / Governance

• The letter says there are no "clearly specified criteria or publicly accountable safeguards". It questions selection criteria, impartiality and safeguards against partisan interference [1].
• Census data feeds delimitation, reservation and resource devolution [2]. The neutrality of the people collecting it therefore bears directly on whether the data is trusted.

Administrative

• Case for the change: a larger pool of workers for a very large digital census, and less pressure on government teachers and school schedules.
• Case against: private staff may not be under the same service conduct rules and disciplinary control as government employees. Accountability for errors or misconduct is less clear [S1, analysis].

Federal

• The open-ended discretion to "appoint any person they consider suitable" lies with State governments and UT administrations [1]. States differ in how they use it, so the risk of partisan appointments may also differ from State to State.

Social

• Fears of "electoral exclusion" [1] fall hardest on migrants, minorities and poor and undocumented households, who are most exposed to errors in enumeration and documentation.

6. Recent Developments (last 12–18 months)

• June 2025 [2]: Census 2027 formally notified, with caste enumeration included.
• 2025–26 [2]: The Election Commission's SIR of electoral rolls draws political criticism. The CPI(M) letter refers to it explicitly [1].
• 2026: The Census Rules are amended to widen the enumerator pool [1].
• 21 October 2026: The CPI(M) letter to the President is reported [1].

7. Prelims Hooks

• Census in India is conducted under the Census Act, 1948 [2].
• The procedural rules in force are the Census Rules, 1990, framed under the Census Act [2].
• "Census" is in the Union List (Entry 69) of the Seventh Schedule [2].
• The Census is run by the Registrar General & Census Commissioner of India, under the MHA (not MoSPI) [2].
• The amended Census Rules allow teachers of aided and unaided private educational institutions to be deployed for Census work [1].
• Staff of PSUs, statutory bodies, banks and companies can also be deployed under the amended rules [1].
• State governments / UT administrations may appoint "any person they consider suitable" as census personnel [1].
• The objection came from CPI(M) general secretary M.A. Baby and was addressed to President Droupadi Murmu [1].
• SIR = Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls, carried out by the Election Commission of India [2].
• Census 2027 reference date: 1 March 2027. For snow-bound areas: 1 October 2026 [2].

8. Why the Secrecy Promise Depends on Who Collects the Data

• The Census Act protects the records, not the choice of person
• Section 15 of the Census Act, 1948 says no one has a right to inspect any census book, register or record made by a census officer.
• It also says census entries cannot be used as evidence in court [5].

• The Act makes it an offence for census staff to disclose what people tell them without government sanction [5].

• Why this matters for the new rules

• People must answer every census question truthfully. The law asks this because it promises that the answers stay confidential [6].
• That promise is only as strong as the person holding it. A government teacher answers to service conduct rules and can lose their job for misconduct.

• A person picked under the "any person they consider suitable" clause [1] may have no employer discipline at all. The only check left is a criminal case after the leak has already happened.

• The real risk is less trust, not only leaks

• If households believe the enumerator is a local party worker, some will hide or change answers on caste, religion or migration.
• The data then goes wrong at the source, and no later checking can fully repair it.

9. The Centre's Strongest Case, and Where It Stops

• The case for more hands is real
• Census 2027 needs more than 30 lakh enumerators, supervisors and other census officials [3].
• Door-to-door visits continue in every houselisting block. Self-enumeration (families filling the form online themselves) is only an extra option, not a replacement [4].

• So digitisation has not cut the need for field staff. Taking only government teachers away from schools for weeks has a real cost to students.

• What the critics should accept

• Bank, PSU (public sector undertaking) and statutory body staff [1] work under their own service and conduct rules. Adding them widens the pool without removing accountability.

• Aided school teachers are already partly paid from public money.

• Where the argument stops

• The scale argument explains why the rules list new categories. It does not explain the open "any person" clause [1].
• A clear list of eligible groups would already meet the staffing need. The open clause adds discretion without adding many more workers. That is why the objection focuses on it.

10. Where the "Another SIR" Comparison Holds and Where It Fails

• Where it fails: the Census cannot legally decide citizenship
• SIR (Special Intensive Revision) directly changes the voter list. A name removed means a vote lost.
• Census entries, by contrast, cannot be used as evidence [5]. A census record alone cannot prove or disprove anyone's citizenship.

• So the Census is not a legal filter the way an electoral roll revision is.

• Where it holds: fear changes behaviour even without legal power

• After the SIR controversy [1], families who fear exclusion may avoid the enumerator or give false details.

• Undercounting migrants and poor households then affects delimitation (redrawing of constituency boundaries) and fund devolution, which depend on census numbers.

• What an aspirant should write

• The danger is not that the Census becomes the NRC by law. It is that people trust it less, so they cooperate less and the data gets worse.

11. What the Centre and Parliament Should Do

• MHA and the Registrar General should write down who counts as "suitable"
• Publish clear eligibility criteria for the residual clause, for example a bar on office-bearers of political parties.

• Require every such appointee to be registered on the CMMS portal. Only registered enumerators can use the census mobile app [3], so registration also creates a record of who collected which data.

• Every appointee should be legally bound before starting work

• Give written notice of the secrecy duty and the penalties under the Census Act [5] before any field work begins.

• Parliament's Committee on Subordinate Legislation should examine the amendment

• The committee checks whether rules made by the government stay within the powers Parliament gave it.

• It can ask whether an open "any person" power fits an Act whose whole design rests on confidentiality [6].

• The RGI should publish the share of non-government enumerators in each State

• The discretion lies with States and UTs [1]. Public State-wise data would show whether any State is misusing it.

12. Anchors for Answers

• Data: 30 lakh+ enumerators, supervisors and census officials deployed for Census 2027 [3]
• Report/Committee: Committee on Subordinate Legislation (Lok Sabha/Rajya Sabha), the forum for scrutinising rule amendments
• Law/Case: Census Act, 1948, Section 15: census records are not open to inspection and not admissible as evidence [5]; K.S. Puttaswamy v. Union of India (2017), the right to privacy
• Scheme: Census 2027 self-enumeration portal, an online option that runs alongside door-to-door visits [4]

13. Mains Relevance

• GS-II: Polity. Covers statutory bodies, delegated legislation, federalism, the President's role, government policies and interventions, and transparency and accountability in governance.
• GS-I: Population and associated issues. The Census is the base data for demographic analysis.
• GS-IV: Integrity and impartiality in public service.
• Possible questions: 1. "The credibility of the Census depends as much on the neutrality of the enumerator as on the design of the questionnaire." Discuss in the light of recent amendments to the Census Rules. 2. Examine the safeguards needed to make sure that population enumeration does not become a tool for surveillance or exclusion. How does the Census differ from the NPR and the NRC? 3. Critically evaluate the role of delegated legislation in census administration and the adequacy of parliamentary oversight over it.

14. Related Topics to Study Next

• Census Act, 1948 and the confidentiality of census data (Section 15) [2]: the legal shield for individual responses.
• NPR and NRC under the Citizenship Rules, 2003 [2]: the root of fears about "citizenship determination".
• SIR of electoral rolls and the Representation of the People Act, 1950 [2]: the "electoral exclusion" parallel the letter draws.
• Caste enumeration in Census 2027 [2]: the first since 1931 and politically charged.
• Delimitation after the first Census after 2026 (Article 82/170) [2]: census data decides seat allocation.
• Committee on Subordinate Legislation [2]: parliamentary scrutiny of rule amendments.
• Right to Privacy (Puttaswamy, 2017) and the DPDP Act, 2023 [2]: data protection in a digital census.

15. NCERT Concepts to Revise

• Delegated legislation (Polity): The amendments change Census Rules, which are executive-made subordinate rules, raising the question of parliamentary scrutiny.
• Committee on Subordinate Legislation (Polity): This is the parliamentary body that checks whether executive rules like the amended Census Rules stay within delegated powers.
• Census 2027 (Geography): The amendments widen the enumerator pool for this first digital census, which will also count caste.
• Special Intensive Revision (Polity): The letter warns the Census must not become 'another SIR', the voter-roll exercise accused of excluding voters.
• Right to privacy (Polity): Fears of surveillance and citizenship checks via census data link to the Puttaswamy privacy ruling.
• Aid and advice of the Council of Ministers (Polity): Explains why the President cannot withdraw the rules alone and must act on ministerial advice.

16. Common Errors / Trap Areas

• Census vs NPR vs NRC: The Census falls under the Census Act, 1948. The NPR and NRC come from the Citizenship Act, 1955 / Citizenship Rules, 2003 [2]. Don't mix them up.
• Ministry: The Census comes under the MHA (RGI), not MoSPI [2].
• What was amended: the Census Rules (subordinate legislation), not the Census Act [1].
• President's power: The President cannot withdraw the rules on their own. They act on ministerial advice (Article 74) [2].
• SIR: Special Intensive Revision, run by the ECI. It is not a census operation [2].