Yesterday, Patna High Court put an interim stay on the caste-based survey initiated by the Bihar state government.
The Bihar government had launched the exercise in January this year and aimed at compiling data on each family in a two-phase process. However, several petitions had been filed in the high court challenging the caste survey.
On Wednesday, during the previous hearing, the high court had reserved its judgment in the case and the division bench of chief justice K Vinod Chandran and justice Madhuresh Prasad had noted that it would grant interim relief to the petitioners.
“We will grant you interim relief if there is a violation of any of the three issues, otherwise we will allow them (the state government) to continue (with the exercise),” Justice Chandran had said.
Three pleas were filed in the court, including one by Youth for Equality, challenging Nitish Kumar-led government's caste-based survey.
The first phase of the survey, which involved a house listing exercise, was carried out from 7 January to 21 January. The second phase began on 15 April and was supposed to be concluded by 15 May.
Earlier today, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar expressed his annoyance with the caste survey. He stated that the last complete caste-wise enumeration was done in 1931 and that enumeration of Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Minorities is done in every decennial census. Kumar also asserted that all parties have supported the survey in the legislature.
The demand for caste enumeration in India's decennial census has grown louder in the recent past. Many Opposition parties, including Kumar's Janata Dal (United), its alliance partner Rashtriya Janata Dal, Congress, Samajwadi Party, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and others have urged the Union government to accept this demand.
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