Act 004 of 1920 : Indian Census Act, 1920

Section 1. Short title and extent

1. Short title and extent.- (1) This Act may be called the Indian Census Act, 1920.

(2) It extends to the whole of British India, inclusive of British Baluchistan, the Sonthal Parganas and the Pargana of Spiti.

Section 2. Appointment if census-officers

2. Appointment if census-officers.- (1) The Local Government may appoint any person to take, or aid in or supervise the taking of, the census within any specified local area.

(2) Persons so appointed shall he called census officers.

(3) The Local Government may delegate to such authority, as it thinks fit, the power of appointing census-officers which is conferred by this section.

Section 3. Proof of appointment of census-officers and their status as public servants

3. Proof of appointment of census-officers and their status as public servants.- (1) A declaration in writing, signed by any officer authorised by the Local Government in this behalf, that any person has been duly appointed a census-officer for any local area shall be conclusive proof of such appointment.

(2) All census-officers shall be deemed to be public servants within the meaning of the Indian Penal Code (45 of 1860).

Section 4. Discharge of duties of census-officers in certain cases

4. Discharge of duties of census-officers in certain cases.- (1)(a) Every officer in command of any body of men belonging to His Majesty's, naval, military or air forces or to His Majesty's Indian Marine Service or of any vessel of war,

(b) every person (except a pilot or harbour-master) having charge or control of a vessel,

(c) every person in charge of a lunatic asylum, hospital, workhouse, prison, reformatory or lock-up or of any public, charitable, religions or educational institution,

(d) every keeper, secretary or manager of any sarai, hotel, boarding-house, lodging-house, emigration depôt or club, and

(e) every occupant of immoveable property who has at the time of the taking of the census not less than twenty persons living on or in such property, and every manager or officer of a railway or other commercial or industrial establishment who has at such time not less than ten persons employed under him,

shall, if so required by the District Magistrate or by such officer as the Local Government may appoint in this behalf, perform such of the duties of a census-officer in relation to the persons who at the time of the taking of the census are under his command or charge, or are inmates of his house or present on or in such immoveable property or are employed under him as such Magistrate or officer may, by written order, direct.

(2) All the provisions of this Act relating to census-officers shall apply, so far as they can he made applicable, to all persons while performing such duties under this section, and any person refusing or neglecting to perform any duty which he is directed under this section to perform shall be deemed to have committed an offence under section 187 of the Indian Penal Code (45 of 1860).

Section 5. Power of District Magistrate to call upon certain persons to give assistant

5. Power of District Magistrate to call upon certain persons to give assistant.- (1) The District Magistrate, or such officer as the Local Government may appoint in this behalf for any local area, may, by written order, which shall have effect throughout the limits of his district or of such local area, as the case may be, call upon-

(a) all owners and occupiers of land, tenure-holders, farmers, assignees of land-revenue and lessees of fisheries under the Burma Fisheries Act, 1905 (Bar. Act III of 1905), or the Upper Burma Land and Revenue Regulation, 1889 (III of 1889), or their agents,

(b) all village-officers and servants in estates as defined in the Madras Proprietary Estates' Tillage Service Act, 1894 (Mad. Act II of 1894), and

(c) all members of panchayats appointed under the Tillage Chaukidari Act, 1870 (Ben. Act VI of 1870), or the Sylhet and Cachar Rural Police Regulation, 1883 (I of 1883), or members of union boards established under the Bengal Tillage Self-Government Act, 1919 (Ben. Act V of 1919), all ghatwals, Unit-tahsildars and members of a panchayat appointed under the Chota Nagpur Rural Police Act, 1914 (B. and O. Act I of 1914), all members of village authorities constituted under the Assam Local Self-Government Act, 1915 (Assam Act I of 1915), and all village-headmen in the Kumaun Division of the United Provinces,

to give such assistance as he needs towards the taking of a census of the persons who are at the time of the taking of the census on the lands of such owners, occupiers, holders, farmers and assignees, or within the limits of such fisheries or in the villages or other areas for which such village-officers and servants, panchayats, union boards, village authorities, ghatwals, Unit-tahsildars or Village-headmen are appointed, as the case may be.

(2) Such order shall specify the nature of the assistance required, and such owners, occupiers, holders, farmers, assignees and lessees, or their agents, and such village-officers and servants, the members of such panchayats, union boards and village authorities, and such ghatwals, Unit-tahsildars and village-headmen shall be bound to obey it.

Section 6. Asking of questions by census-officers

6. Asking of questions by census-officers.- Every census-officer may ask all such questions of all persons within the limits of the local area for which he is appointed as, by instructions issued in this behalf by the Local Government and published in the official Gazette, he may be directed to ask.

Section 7. Obligation to answer questions

7. Obligation to answer questions.- Every person of whom any question is asked under the last foregoing section shall be legally bound to answer such question to the best of his knowledge or belief:

Provided that no person shall be hound to state the name of any female member of his household, and no woman shall be bound to state the name of her husband or deceased husband or of any other person whose name she is forbidden by custom to mention.

Section 8. Occupier to allow access, and permit affixing of numbers

8. Occupier to allow access, and permit affixing of numbers.- Every person occupying any house, enclosure, vessel or other place shall allow census-officers such access thereto as they may require for the purposes of the census, and as, having regard to the customs of the country, may be reasonable, and shall allow them to paint on or affix to the place such letters, marks or numbers as may be necessary for the purposes of the census.

Section 9. Occupier or manager to fill up schedule

9. Occupier or manager to fill up schedule.- (1) Subject to such orders as the Local Government may issue in this behalf, any census-officer may leave, or cause to be left,

(a) at any dwelling-house within the local area for which he is appointed, or

(b) with any manager or officer of any commercial or industrial establishment who has at the time of the taking of the census not less than ten persons employed under him,

a schedule for the purpose of its being filled up by the occupier of such house or of any specified part thereof, or by such manager or officer with such particulars as the Local Government may direct regarding the inmates of such house or part, or the persons employed under such manager or officer at the time of the taking of the census, as the case may be.

(2) When any such schedule has been so left, the occupier of the house or part to which it relates, or the manager or officer with whom it is left, shall fill it up, or cause it to be filled up, to the best of his knowledge or belief, so far as regards the inmates of such house or part, or the persons employed under him at the time aforesaid, as the case may he, and shall sign his name thereto, and when so required, shall deliver the schedule so filled up and signed to the census-officer or to such person as the census-officer may direct.

Section 10. Penalties

10. Penalties.- In any of the following cases, namely:-

(a) if a census-officer or a person lawfully required to give assistance towards the taking of a census refuses or neglects to use reasonable diligence in performing any duty imposed upon him or in obeying any order issued to him in accordance with this Act or with any rule duly made thereunder,

(b) if a census-officer intentionally puts any offensive or improper question or knowingly makes any false return, or without the previous sanction of the Governor General in Council or the Local Government, discloses any information which he has received by means of or for the purposes of a census return,

(c) if any person refuses to answer to the best of his knowledge or belief any question asked of him by a census-officer which he is legally bound by section 7 so to answer,

(d) if any person occupying any house, enclosure, vessel or other place refuses to allow a census-officer such reasonable access thereto as he is required by section 8 to allow,

(e) if any person removes, obliterates, alters or injures before the 31^st day of March, 1921, any letters, marks or numbers which have been painted or affixed for the purposes of the census,

(f) if any occupier of a dwelling-house or part thereof or any person with whom a schedule is left under section 9 knowingly and without sufficient cause fails to comply with the provisions of section 9 or makes any false return under that section,

he shall be punishable with fine which may extend to fifty rupees.

Section 11. Jurisdiction in prosecutions

11. Jurisdiction in prosecutions.- (1) The Local Government may, by notification in the official Gazette, declare before what classes of Magistrates prosecutions under this Act may be instituted.

(2) Unless and until a notification is published under sub-section (1), all prosecutions under this Act shall, in the towns of Calcutta, Madras, and Bombay, be instituted before a Presidency Magistrate, and elsewhere, before the District Magistrate.

(3) No prosecution under this Act shall be instituted except with the previous sanction of the Local Government or of some officer authorised by the Local Government in this behalf.

Section 12. Records of census not open to inspection or admissible in evidence in certain proceeding

12. Records of census not open to inspection or admissible in evidence in certain proceeding.- No person shall have a right to inspect any book, register or record made by a census-officer in the discharge of his duty as such officer or any schedule delivered under section 9, and, notwithstanding anything to the contrary in the Indian Evidence Act, 1872 (I of 1872), no entry in any such book, register, record or schedule shall be admissible as evidence in any civil proceeding or any proceeding under Chapter XII or Chapter XXXVI of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1898 (V of 1898).

Section 13. Temporary suspension of local enactments and rules as to mode of taking census in municipalities

13. Temporary suspension of local enactments and rules as to mode of taking census in municipalities.- Notwithstanding anything in any enactment or rule with respect to the mode in which a census is to be taken in any municipality, the municipal authority may, at the time appointed for the taking of the census of British India during the year 1921, cause the census of the municipality to be taken wholly or in part by any method authorised by this Act.

Section 14. Power in regard to expenses

14. Power in regard to expenses.- Notwithstanding anything in any enactment or rule, in regard to municipal, local, union or village funds, the Local Government may direct that the whole or any part of any expenses incurred for anything done in accordance with this Act may be charged to any municipal, local, union or village fund constituted for, and on behalf of, the area within which such expenses were incurred.

Section 15. Power to make rules

15. Power to make rules.- (1) The Governor General in Council may make rules for carrying out the purposes of this Act.

(2) In particular, and without prejudice to the generality of the foregoing power, the Governor General in Council may make rules providing-

(a) for the appointment of census-officers and of persons to perform any of the duties of census-officers or to give assistance towards the taking of a census, and for the general instructions to be issued to such officers and persons;

(b) for the enumeration of persons employed on rail ways and their families and of other classes of the population for whom it may he necessary or expedient to make special provision; and

(c) for the enumeration of persons travelling on the night when a census is taken.

(3) The Governor General in Council may, by general or special order, direct that all or any of the powers conferred upon him by this section may also be exercised by any Local Government with respect to the territories administered by it.