The Bihar government on Thursday moved the Supreme Court, challenging Patna high court’s May 4 order putting an interim stay on the caste-based census in the state hearing a petition by Youth for Equality after the apex Court directed it to look into the matter and dispose of the case in three days. The high court also rejected the Bihar government’s interlocutory application (IA) for an early hearing in the case.
On May 4, the high court stayed the ongoing caste survey in Bihar with immediate effect and fixed July 3 as the next date of hearing on the matter.
Against this, the Bihar government filed a special leave petition (SLP) before the Supreme Court.
Also read: After staying caste survey, Patna HC rejects Bihar’s plea for early hearing
The government stated in the SLP through advocate Manish Kumar that “the high court granted interim stay on the caste-based survey when it was on the verge of completion and could hamper the entire exercise, as 80% of the work has already been completed”. It also challenged the high court’s observation that the survey was akin to a census, which fell in the domain of the Union government.
“In some of the districts, barely 10% of work is left to be completed. However, the stay has stopped the entire exercise and restarting it would further burden the state exchequer,” said the government plea, defending the state’s power to conduct such a survey and the constitutional mandate to collect such data for effective policy making.
It is being said that the SLP has been filed under “extreme urgency in view of the interim order passed by the high court, which is completely unsustainable, and that the relief and finding at the interim stage is as good as final relief and the writ petition has virtually become infructuous”.
The plea also argued that as per the government notification of June 6, 2022, the assembly is only to be appraised about the progress of the survey and not the data collated, which makes the “finding on right to privacy erroneous”.
The high court bench of chief justice K Vinod Chandran and justice Madhuresh Prasad, while staying the caste survey on Thursday, directed the Bihar government “to ensure that the data already collected are secured and not shared with anybody till final orders are passed in the writ petition”.
The court observed that “the caste-based survey is a census in the garb of a survey, the power to carry out which is exclusively on the Union Parliament which has also enacted a Census Act, 1948”. However, the SLP challenged the contention that it was a census on the plea “that the collection of data at village, Block, District or State level cannot be a census as defined under the Act”.
“The collection of caste-based data is a constitutional mandate under Articles 15 and 16 apart from other provisions as explained in the counter affidavit of the state. The National and State Commission of Backward Classes Act has been made by the Centre and the states for identification of backward class which can be effectively implemented only when there is quantifiable data,” states the plea, citing various apex court orders.
Also Read: Caste census in last stage, halting it will cause loss to exchequer: Bihar govt to HC
The Patna high court had in its order categorically stated that “prima facie, we are of the opinion that the state has no power to carry out a caste-based survey, in the manner in which it is fashioned now, which would amount to a census, thus impinging upon the legislative power of the Union Parliament”.
The first round of the caste survey was conducted between January 7 and 21. The second round started on April 15 and was scheduled to continue till May 15.
The Mahagathbandhan government– an alliance of chief minister Nitish Kumar’s Janata Dal (United), the Rashtriya Janata Dal, and the Congress— ordered the survey after the Centre declined the request of an all-party delegation, including the Bharatiya Janata Party from Bihar for a headcount of social groups other than the Scheduled Castes (SCs), Scheduled Tribes (STs) and religious minorities as part of the census.
