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HC: PIL against Bihar caste survey maintainable, hearing on April 18
In the second phase, which is scheduled to begin from April 15, data pertaining to people’s castes and religions will be collected.
The Patna high court has found a PIL, challenging Bihar government’s decision to conduct a caste-based survey “maintainable”, and asked advocate general PK Shahi to respond to the matter by April 18.
The Bihar government launched first phase of the survey in January, during which the number of households in the state were counted. In the second phase, which is scheduled to begin from April 15, data pertaining to people’s castes and religions will be collected.
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The petitioner, Akhilesh Kumar, earlier moved the Supreme Court on the matter, but was asked to route the case through the Patna high court. The PIL was subsequently filed in the high court on March 14.
Hearing the petition during pre-admission stage on Friday, a division bench of chief justice K Vinod Chandran and justice Madhuresh Prasad asked AG Shahi to look into the matter and listed it for hearing on April 18.
“The court will now examine the decision of government of Bihar with respect to the caste-based survey and see whether it is in public interest,” said advocate Dinu Kumar, who is representing Akhilesh Kumar in the case. The petition, essentially, seeks to quash the state’s notification 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 notify.
“A survey is done on a sample pick-and-choose basis, say for instance an aerial survey during floods or to test the spread of Covid, whereas the caste-based survey is also an economic survey, involving house-to-house enumeration of all the people in the state,” said the petition.
“As per Section 3 of the Census Act, 1948, and Rule 6A of Census Rule, 1990, the Centre has made no such declaration for a caste-based survey or census in Bihar,” it added.
The court had earlier rejected AG Shahi’s argument that the petitioner had no locus standi to challenge the government decision on the survey, saying it was a matter of public interest.
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The petitioner, through his counsel, has also challenged the estimated expenditure of ₹500 crore for the survey through the Bihar Contingency Fund, which he said was to meet “unforeseen expenditure”.
He also said that the state government, in its notification, did not mention the intention behind conducting the survey and neither was it mentioned in the annual budget. “So, how could the government bring it through a supplementary budget,” he argued.
