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Synopsis

The Supreme Court on Friday refused to order status quo on the caste-based survey conducted by Bihar government.

"We are not going to stay anything...you cannot stop the state government or any government from taking decisions..we are going to examine state's power to do this..more important part would be regarding breakdown of data..", said a bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna and SVN Bhatti.

Bihar government had recently released the data so collected by it through the survey.

Today, Justice Khanna observed that the impugned judgement of Patna High Court was fairly detailed.

On the other hand, the petitioner submitted that High Court's judgment was wrong on every point of law. "Data has not been collected as per the law laid down by this court..there is no legitimate aim to do this exercise..", Court was further told.

After some discussion, the bench went on to issue notice in the plea returnable January, 2024. Counter affidavit has to be filed within four weeks.

Recently, the Centre told Supreme Court that central government is committed to take all affirmative actions for upliftment of SCs/STs/SEBCs and OBCs in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution and the applicable law. 

The Union government's response came in a batch of petitions challenging the Patna High Court's order which upheld the Bihar government's decision to conduct a contentious caste census in the State.

However, the Census Act, 1948, empowers the central government to conduct the census under section 3 of the said Act, it said. "Census is a statutory process and is governed by the Census Act, 1948. It is submitted that the subject of Census is covered in the Union List under Entry 69 in the Seventh Schedule," it said.

On August 21, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for the Centre, had told the Supreme Court that the caste survey initiated by the Bihar government would have ramifications requiring it to file an affidavit.

Earlier, the Supreme Court had refused to grant status quo on the Patna High Court's order.

'Ek Soch Ek Prayas', an NGO, had approached the top court against the High Court's recent decision upholding the Bihar government's caste-based survey.

In April this year, a division bench of the Supreme Court had refused to entertain a plea challenging the caste-based survey. However, a bench of Justices MR Shah and JB Pardiwala had allowed the petitioners to move an application for early hearing on interim relief before the High Court.

The plea challenged the caste-based survey on the ground that it was not a survey for a sample population, but a census, involving house-to-house enumeration of all people, which only the Centre could undertake.

Later, the Patna High Court had stayed the controversial survey by issuing an order stating, ".. we direct the State Government to immediately stop the caste-based survey and ensure that the data already collected are secured and not shared with anybody till final orders are passed...," .

The High Court also criticised the government's lackadaisical attitude in ensuring data security. It observed that the declaration made by the head of the family is not absolute and even if a video conferencing service is available, there is no way to authenticate the person available on the other side.

Additionally, it also refuted any argument regarding not calling it a caste-based exercise since there are seventeen columns under which people have to provide their information. “The intention was solely to identify the caste, which is more than evident from the terminology with which the survey has been called, i.e.: ‘a caste-based survey’,” observed the Court.

Case Title: Ek Soch Ek Paryas vs. Union of India