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SC refuses to intervene against HC stay on Bihar caste-based survey

The Supreme Court on Thursday refused to immediately lift an interim stay directed by the Patna High Court on a caste-based survey in Bihar.

A Bench of Justices Abhay S. Oka and Rajesh Bindal said the High Court has scheduled the main case for hearing on July 3, and the apex court should not intervene at this point. The court listed the Bihar government’s appeal against the interim stay on July 14. The Bench said it would consider the plea for interim relief in case the High Court does not take up the matter on July 3.

“If the High Court does not hear the matter, we will hear it on the point of interim relief,” Justice Oka addressed senior advocate Shyam Divan, appearing for Bihar. The Bench said the High Court has made certain prima facie observations about the exercise and was set to determine whether it was a ‘census’ or merely a ‘survey’.

Divan vouches for the integrity of the survey. He said the stay order has caused irreparable loss to the public exchequer. He urged the court to intervene to the extent the State could complete the exercise. “The State has already completed more than 80% of the survey work. In some districts less than 10% of work is pending. The entire machinery is at ground level,” Divan argued.

He said that over three lakh teachers and government servants were engaged in the survey. Bihar government has argued that the “time gap to complete the survey would adversely affect the survey since this would not be contemporaneous data...the stay of collection of data itself would cause a huge loss to the State since, if finally the action of the State is upheld, the State would be required to put logistics in place with additional expenditure and burden on public exchequer”.

“The data would change in another nine months,” he pointed out. The High Court, in its May 4 order, had prima facie found that the proposed dissemination of the survey data to political parties would affect the fundamental right to privacy of citizens.

The State government has contended that it was empowered under the Concurrent List and by Articles 15 and 16 of the Constitution to collect quantifiable caste-based data to initiate welfare measures for backward classes in Bihar.