Opposition leaders Rahul Gandhi and Mallikarjun Kharge wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, urging him to scrap the current caste census questionnaire and prepare a new one based on a verified list of castes.Gandhi and Kharge said that the government had chosen an open-ended question to record caste details, which they argued could result in the same caste being recorded under different names, sub-castes and with regional variations.They proposed creating a drop-down list of castes, similar to the method used for enumerating Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. Read on.The Supreme Court sought responses from 20 rebel Trinamool Congress MPs on a plea by party leader Abhishek Banerjee challenging the delay by the Lok Sabha speaker in deciding the disqualification petitions he has filed against the legislators. The bench did not issue notice to Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla, who is the main respondent in the case.Ahead of the Monsoon Session of Parliament in July, Birla accepted the request of the rebel MPs to sit separately in the Lok Sabha. However, the speaker has not yet recognised the group’s merger with the Nationalist Citizens Party of India. Read on.The Calcutta High Court directed that no coercive action be taken against Trinamool Congress leader Abhishek Banerjee in three first information reports registered against him. There was no need for Banerjee to be interrogated in custody, a judge said.The TMC leader was granted protection till November 30, or until further orders.The court stipulated that Banerjee be given at least 48 hours’ notice before being called for interrogation and asked the TMC leader to cooperate with the police. Read on.The Union Nations’ watchdog on racial discrimination expressed concern about Indian law enforcement officers allegedly targeting Rohingya refugees and Bengali-speaking Muslims. The Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination said that there had also been an increase in the authorities allegedly targeting migrants and asylum-seekers, particularly in the past year.The panel said it was concerned about deportations and “forcible returns of people in need of international protection, in violation of the principle of non-refoulement”.The committee also said that it was concerned about violations allegedly perpetrated by the law enforcement authorities against ethnic and ethno-religious groups, the Scheduled Tribes, the Scheduled Castes, particularly Dalits. It called on India to “urgently address” discrimination, hate speech and hate crimes. Read on.The Supreme Court directed rape convict journalist Tarun Tejpal to surrender to the authorities within two weeks. Tejpal, the former editor-in-chief of Tehelka magazine, had moved the Supreme Court on Thursday challenging the Bombay High Court’s decision to convict him of raping and sexually harassing a junior colleague in 2013. He was sentenced to 10 years’ imprisonment.The bench agreed to list Tejpal’s appeal, provided he submits his surrender certificate by September 22.The Goa government has also moved the Supreme Court seeking life imprisonment for Tejpal instead of the 10-year sentence. Read on.If you haven’t already, sign up for our Daily Brief newsletter.