6.6.2. Description

Untouchability is banned in any form in our country. Under Article 35, the Parliament has made 2 enabling Acts to enforce this provision. Notably, the Constitution has not defined the term “untouchability”. However, the Mysore High Court held that the subject matter of Article 17 is not untouchability in its literal or grammatical sense but the ‘practice as it had developed

historically in the country’. It refers to the social disabilities imposed on certain classes of persons by reason of their birth in certain castes. Hence, it does not cover social boycott of a few individuals or their exclusion from religious services, etc.