The Supreme Court on Friday refused to restrain the Bihar government from publishing further data from its caste survey, stating that it can’t stop any state from taking a policy decision.
A bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna and SVN Bhatti issued a formal notice on a batch of pleas challenging the August 1 order of the Patna High Court that gave the go-ahead for the caste survey in Bihar.
The SC bench listed the matter for further hearing in January, 2024.
It rejected the petitioner’s contention that the state government has already published some data pre-empting a stay. They were demanding a complete stay order on further data publication.
The bench stated, “We are not staying anything at this moment. We can’t stop the state government or any government from taking a policy decision. That would be wrong…We are going to examine the other issue regarding the power of the state government to conduct this exercise.”
Senior advocate Aprajita Singh, appeared for the petitioners, stated that there is breach of privacy in the matter and the High Court order is wrong. To this, the bench stated that since the name and other identities of any individual have not been published, therefore the argument that there was a breach of privacy may not be correct.
The bench stated, “The more important issue for consideration of the court is breakdown of data and its availability to the public.”
Previously on October 2, the Nitish Kumar government in Bihar released findings of its caste survey, months ahead of the 2024 Parliamentary elections. The data revealed that OBCs & EBCs constitute a whopping 63% of the state’s total population.
According to the data released, the state’s total population stood at a little over 13.07 crore, out of which the Extremely Backward Classes (36%) were the largest social segment followed by the Other Backward Classes at 27.13%.
The survey also stated that Yadavs, the OBC group to which Deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Yadav belongs, were the largest caste in terms of the population, accounting for 14.27% of the total.
On August 7, the top court refused to stay the order of Patna High Court giving the go-ahead for the caste survey, and deferred the hearing on petitions challenging it to August 14.
Besides a plea by NGO ‘Ek Soch Ek Paryas’, several other petitions have been filed including one by a Nalanda-resident, Akhilesh Kumar, who has contended that the notification issued by the state government for the exercise is against the constitutional mandate.
Kumar’s petition states that according to the constitutional mandate only the Union government is empowered to conduct a census.
The high court stated in its 101-page verdict, “We find the action of the state to be perfectly valid, initiated with due competence with the legitimate aim of providing development with justice.”
A day after the high court held the caste survey as “valid”, the state government swung into action and suspended all the ongoing training programmes for teachers so that they can be engaged for an early completion of the exercise.
The Nitish Kumar government stated on August 25 that the survey has been completed and data will be made public soon. Petitioners opposed making the data public, contending it will infringe people’s right to privacy.