PATNA: The Patna high court on Tuesday refused to stay the ongoing caste-based survey in the state.
A division bench of chief justice K Vinod Chandran and justice Madhuresh Prasad refused to stay the exercise, saying that it was not inclined to pass any interim order, and fixed the next hearing for May 4.
The court was hearing a bunch of public interest litigations (PILs), seeking a stay on the survey which is being held in two phases. The first round of the survey, involving 127 million respondents in 29 million households, was held between January 7 and 21. The second phase began on April 15 and will continue till May 15.
Appearing for one of the petitioners, senior advocate in the Supreme Court, Aparajita Singh said the survey was being held without any legislation in place.
The counsel argued that no legislative enactment was brought about prior to publication of the notification (on June 6, 2022) by the government to conduct the caste-based survey in the state. Besides, the notification did not mention the intention behind conducting the survey.
Singh also referred to a September 26, 2018 constitution bench judgement of the Supreme Court in an Aadhaar-related case (K.S. Puttaswamy vs Union on India), in which it laid down certain guidelines, detailing the manner in which information pertaining to individuals cannot be forced to be disclosed as it amounted to breach of right to privacy of citizens.
The high court has clubbed a bunch of PILs along with the petition of one Akhilesh Kumar who had earlier moved the Supreme Court directly. The top court in January had asked him to approach the high court first.
The Grand Alliance in the state, comprising the Janata Dal (United), Rashtriya Janata Dal, Congress, Hindustani Awami Morcha (Secular) and Left parties, have been demanding a national caste census.
