NEW DELHI: As questions are being raised over the legal validity of states conducting caste surveys after the Patna High Court stayed an ongoing survey, legal and constitutional experts argue that states are well within their rights to hold caste surveys to collect data on the social and economically disadvantaged population.
While passing the interim order over the Bihar government’s caste survey, the court said that the survey amounted to a census operation, which comes under the Union list. Speaking to this paper, Constitutional expert PDT Achary points out that though the decennial census is conducted by the Union government, states can conduct surveys to collect statistics or data on the socially and economically disadvantaged segment to implement welfare schemes.
“High Court staying the survey cannot be considered as a setback. Under the Concurrent List, states have the power to conduct caste surveys. The High Court has stayed the process because it wants to know whether it is a census or not. The census can only be undertaken by the Centre. If the state government wants to implement schemes for a certain section of the population, they can do the headcount of that particular section,” said Achary. The Bihar government launched the caste survey early this year, to tabulate the socio-economic data for a population of 12.70 crore in the 38 districts of the state. The survey was scheduled to end on May 15.
While passing the interim order to stay the Bihar survey, the two judge bench said, “Prima facie, we are of the opinion that the State has no power to carry out a caste survey in the manner in which it is fashioned now, which would amount to a census, it said. However, speaking to this paper, RJD MP Manoj Jha said that the state has been undertaking a caste survey and not ‘Census’. “The state Cabinet has passed a unanimous resolution in 2020 in this regard,” he said.
While the demand for a nationwide caste census has become a hot-button issue for several Opposition parties in the run-up to the 2024 general election, states like Odisha and Chhattisgarh have initiated the process to tabulate social and educational conditions of people belonging to backward castes in the states.
Karnataka is a case in point which conducted a caste survey under the Siddaramaiah government in 2015. Speaking to this paper, former Chief Minister and ex-Union Minister Veerappa Moily said that the state conducted the caste survey through the state commission for backward classes, set up in the direction of the Supreme Court.
“In Karnataka, we conducted the caste survey through the state backward class commission... Through state commissions, states are entitled to conduct surveys to count caste and other socio-economic indicators,” says Moily.