BENGALURU: The Karnataka High Court on Tuesday heard petitions challenging the State Government’s decision to allow the Karnataka State Backward Classes Commission to conduct the Socio-Economic and Educational Survey (caste survey) and seeking a stay. The statewide survey began on September 22. While the petitioners have claimed before the HC that the ongoing survey is an intrusion of the right to privacy, the commission denied it, saying that Aadhaar card is being used only for identification purposes and there is no compulsion for people to disclose details like caste, religion, etc, to the enumerators.
These arguments and the counter arguments were made before the division bench of Chief Justice Vibhu Bakhru and Justice C M Joshi, which adjourned the further hearing on the pleas for stay of the survey to Wednesday. The petitions were filed by Rajya Vokkaligara Sangha, Akhila Karnataka Brahmana Mahasabha and others.
To a query by the court about how the Aadhaar card will be used in view of the allegations made by the petitioners, the senior counsel representing the government sid that there is no intrusion of privacy when the data is being collected for policy. On the other hand, the senior counsel representing the commission submitted that they are only using the Aadhaar card for identification and cross-checking of the petitioners whose survey is being conducted. There is no compulsion to disclose caste, religion, etc, he said.
Earlier, the senior counsels representing the petitioners reiterated their arguments that there is no legislative competence for the state to conduct the survey.
“The caste data is also part of the census, which can be done only by the Union Government. We don’t know the decision of the State Government about the survey done in 2015, spending Rs 150 crore, whether it was accepted or not, but again a survey is being conducted, splurging Rs 420 crore. The collection of data is a violation of the right to privacy, and it cannot be ruled out that the information is collected digitally,” they said.
They also argued that the number of castes were 207 in 2002, 1,351 in 2015, and this number has increased to 1,561 in 2025. “There is undue haste in conducting the survey when people were travelling during the Dasara vacation. No application of mind has gone into the entire process.
The outsourced electrical meter readers were roped in for the survey, and there is no safeguard as per the Aadhaar Act, and the whole process is likely to lead to a situation where there is no protection of sensitive data. This is an irreversible process. Where is the question of updating data when the 2015 report has not yet seen the light till today,” they argued.
Stating that the survey has been mischaracterising the caste census, senior counsel representing the state submitted that this is a social-educational survey to identify backward classes socially and educationally. “Sameeksha doesn’t mean survey.
The obstruction to the survey by the petitioners is a self-serving interest. The state has the power to do. Therefore, Commissions of Havanur, Venkataswamy and Chinnappareddy have done a survey in the past, before the 2015 survey,” the senior counsel argued.
He said that when the Union Government can do the survey all-India basis, why there is a bar on the state? “There cannot be a stay for the valid exercise of which the state has power. The petitioners don’t want to challenge the decision taken to conduct a survey, but they have challenged the collection of data,” he argued.