Madras High Court takes up suo motu PIL for removal of caste appellations from names of streets, roads, and localities in Tamil Nadu

The Madras High Court on Thursday (October 1, 2026) took up a suo motu public interest litigation (PIL) petition to enforce a series of directions it had passed over the years to ensure the removal of caste appellations from the names of streets, roads, and localities across Tamil Nadu.

The First Division Bench of Chief Justice Sushrut Arvind Dharmadhikari and Justice G. Arul Murugan directed the State government to submit a status report within four weeks, listing out the references that had been removed so far and those that were yet to be removed.

The suo motu PIL petition was taken up on the basis of the latest order passed by Justice N. Ramesh on August 11, 2026 – his maiden order after being elevated as a judge of the High Court. In his order, the single judge had lamented the existence of such appellations.

After coming across a First Information Report (FIR), in which Sendhamangalam police in Namakkal district had referred to a place as ‘Pallar Street,’ the judge had wondered how such appellations continued to exist despite a series of judicial directions and government orders passed since 1978.

The judge had told State Public Prosecutor R. John Sathyan that a Government Order issued in 1978 had insisted upon all local bodies to identify caste appellations in the names of streets and roads and remove them. Thereafter, the High Court, too, had issued a series of directions since 2018.

Justice Ramesh had said that the naming of a street or a road after a caste had serious consequences, as the residents of those places get identified by their caste, and those names get reflected in every other official document, such as their ration cards, Aadhaar cards, driving licences, and so on.

Highlighting the constitutional imperative to create a casteless society, the judge had also said that it was in that direction that Justice D. Bharatha Chakravarthy of the High Court had recently ordered the removal of caste appellations from the names of all schools and colleges located across Tamil Nadu.

Justice Ramesh had also referred to the Tamil Nadu government recently renaming the Adi Dravidar Welfare Department as Social Justice Department in order to avoid reference to a caste and said, the exercise would remain incomplete unless all caste appellations were removed completely from the names of streets and roads.

Since he had come across the FIR during the hearing of a bail petition, the judge had directed the High Court Registry to register a suo motu case with respect to the deletion of caste appellations from the names of streets and roads and place it before the Chief Justice for appropriate orders.