The Supreme Court on Friday, while hearing a batch of pleas challenging the legality of the Bihar caste-based census, refused to pass any order of stay or status quo to restrain the state government from acting on the caste-survey data.
A bench of justices Sanjiv Khanna and SVN Bhatti said, “We cannot stop state government or any government from taking a decision,” as reported by Live Law.
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The bench was hearing petitions filed by non-governmental organisation Youth for Equality and Ek Soch Ek Prayas against the decision of the Patna High Court delivered on August 2 to uphold the Bihar government’s decision to undertake caste-based survey.
During the hearing, advocate Aparajitha Singh took exception to the state government publishing the caste-survey data earlier this week, even while the matter was sub-judice. “They have preempted the order. We are arguing stay…,” she submitted.
The court rejected the objections of the petitioners that the state government has preempted the stay order by publishing some data and demanded that a complete stay should be ordered on further publication of data.
In its caste census released last week, the Bihar government stated that 36 per cent of the state’s 13.1 crore-strong population belongs to Extremely Backward Classes, 27.1 per cent to Backward Classes, 19.7 per cent to Scheduled Castes, and 1.7 per cent to Scheduled Tribes. The general population accounts for 15.5 per cent.