Patna HC ‘no’ to Bihar plea for early hearing in caste survey case

The Patna High Court on Tuesday rejected the Bihar government’s petition seeking hearing in the case of caste enumeration and economic survey at the earliest.

Image used for illustrative purposes only. (Express Illurstrations | Soumyadip Sinha) 

PATNA:  The Patna High Court on Tuesday rejected the Bihar government’s petition seeking a hearing in the case of caste enumeration and economic survey at the earliest. The division bench, headed by Chief Justice K V Chandran, kept July 3, as scheduled earlier, as the date for the hearing on the matter.

On May 4, the Patna High Court had issued an interim stay order on the caste count which was underway.
The caste-based survey had begun on April 15.  The second round was scheduled to be completed by May 15. The high court had directed the government not to share and use the data collected during this period. The data collected during the survey was subsequently preserved.

The state government filed a review petition, praying for an early hearing in the case. The state government in its petition contended that since the Patna High Court had made it clear that the state government did not have the statutory authority to conduct a caste-based survey, there was no reason to hear these petitions on July 3.  The court in its interim order had clarified that the executive does not have the jurisdiction to conduct a caste survey. 

The court had also said that the privacy of the public is violated by the caste survey. The state government pleaded in its petition that the court had given its final decision on the issues raised in five PILs and so these petitions should be heard and executed before July 3. The court, however, rejected the state government’s petition and fixed the date of the hearing on July 3.  Under the first phase of the survey which was conducted from January 7 to January 21, house listing exercise was carried out. In the second phase, details of each individual in the family were collected.   

‘No jurisdiction to conduct caste survey’
The court in its interim order had clarified that the executive does not have the jurisdiction to conduct a caste survey. The court had also said that the privacy of the public is violated by the caste survey. It rejected the state government’s petition and fixed the date of hearing on July 3.