Supreme Court in its order on Thursday refused to stay the Patna High Court’s order which had put on hold the caste-based survey in Bihar.
The Apex Court asked the Bihar state government to argue on July 3 before the HC where the matter is still pending.
A two-judge bench ofthe Supreme Court, headed by Justice Abhay S Oka and also comprising Justice Rajesh Bindal today passed the order and refused to stay the Patna High Court’s order which had put on hold the caste-based survey in Bihar.
A day before yesterday, one of the Supreme Court judges in the two-judge bench, Justice Sanjay Karol had recused from hearing the appeal filed by Bihar government challenging the Patna High Court’s order of staying caste census in the State. After his recusal, the case has been assigned to Justice Oka and Justice Bindal.
Bihar government had moved the Supreme Court last week and filed an appeal challenging Patna HC order staying caste census.
The Bihar Govt, in its appeal, filed before the Supreme Court, said that the Patna High Court had in its order on May 4 erroneously examined the merits of the case at the interim stage and touched upon the legislative competence of the State.
“The petitioners have moved the Patna High Court 10 months after the survey began,” the Bihar government in its appeal, filed before the Apex Court, said.
“The State (Bihar) has already completed more than 80% of the Survey work in some districts. There shall be no harm in completing the exercise subject to the final outcome of it. The time gap to complete survey would adversely affect the survey since this would not be a contemporaneous data,” the Bihar govt, said in its appeal filed before the Supreme Court.
Primarily, in January this year, a Supreme Court bench headed by Justice BR Gavai and also comprising Justice Vikram Nath had refused to entertain three Public Interest Litigations (PILs) challenging the State’s decision to initiate the caste census. That bench had, however, granted liberty to the petitioners to approach the Patna High Court.
The petitioners then had moved the Patna High Court which initially declined to entertain the plea, but later, on May 4, a bench of Chief Justice K Vinod Chandran and Justice Madhuresh Prasad, put a stay on the caste census in the State.
It held that the survey is actually a census, which can only be carried out by the Central government. The surveys were, therefore, put on hold by the High Court till July 3.
The appeal of rhea Bihar govt said that the High Court had wrongly accepted the contention that the survey was a census, and that personal information regarding the same would be shared with MLAs.
“The collection of data at village, Block, District or State level cannot be a census as defined under the Act,” the appeal said.
Further, the State would have to incur huge financial costs if the survey is stopped at this stage, the Bihar government said in its appeal filed before the Supreme Court.
