Sikh Federation returns to court to challenge ‘ unlawful’ census

A GROUP campaigning for Sikhs to be included in the ethnicity section in the UK 2021 census said it had been told it is too late – after a previous High Court action was deemed to be too early.

The Sikh Federation UK is bringing a legal challenge over the census, arguing that it is “unlawful” because it does not include a “tick- box” option for people to record themselves as being of Sikh ethnicity.

The federation previously brought legal action on this issue last year and Mrs Justice Lang dismissed the case in December, saying it was “premature”. The judge said if she had made the declaration sought, Parliament would be unable to scrutinise any regulations put forward.

But back in the High Court almost a year later, after the draft census passed through Parliament in May, the federation said at a hearing in London yesterday that due to the “withholding” of information by the Cabinet Office they are now being told it is too late. The legal action is being brought by Amrik Singh Gill, on behalf of the federation.

The Cabinet Office argues that if it is now required to reconsider or alter the content of the 2021 census, it will be delayed beyond March 2021, which, it claims, would “result in a series of gravely detrimental consequences”.

The federation, which has been campaigning on the issue for 15 years, is asking the court to quash the census order, arguing it is unlawful because it has been formulated on the basis of recommendations by the Office for National Statistics, which were reached “following an unlawful evaluation process, and based on unlawful reasoning”.

Mr Justice Choudhury, hearing the case, is expected to give his ruling at a later date.