The Supreme Court on Thursday declined to overturn the Patna High Court’s interim order suspending the Bihar government’s caste survey.
The first round of caste survey in Bihar was conducted between 7 and 21 January. The second round started on 15 April and was supposed to continue till 15 May.
A bench of justices Abhay S Oka and Rajesh Bindal said it would have to examine if the exercise being carried out is a census in the garb of survey.
Justice Bindal orally remarked during the hearing that a lot of documents show the exercise is census only. “We are making it clear, this is not a case where we can grant you interim relief,” the bench said.
The apex court noted that the high court had posted the hearing of the main petition on 3 July.
“We direct that this petition be listed on 14 July. If for any reason, the hearing of the writ petition does not commence before the next date, we will hear further submission canvassed by the senior counsel for the petitioner (Bihar),” the bench said.
At the outset, senior advocate Shyam Divan, appearing for the Bihar government, submitted that the high court is completely at error and said the current exercise is not a census but only a voluntary survey.
While trying to explain the difference between the two, Divan said survey is of a certain quality which has to be for a span of period.
The top court, however, told Divan out that the high court had already gone into those aspects.
“High Court has gone into it and said stop for now. The High Court had flagged data privacy issues,” the bench said
