Published on : 21 Nov 2025, 11:35 am 8 min read

The intertwined threads of caste, politics and elections recently resurfaced in A Raja v. D Kumar , reshaping the very landscape of election petitions challenging the caste of the returned candidate in India.

This landmark judgment did not merely revisit the settled principles; it recalibrated the delicate balance between constitutional identity and electoral eligibility, pre and post-qualifications, and abridged the rationales between a caste certificate issued by the authorised officer, the enquiry conducted by the anthropology department, the scrutiny committee, and fact-finding given by the High Court. By probing the limits of caste entitlement within reserved constituencies, it rekindled a long-dormant debate on how deeply

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