Patna HC says PIL against caste survey ‘maintainable’

The Patna high court has found a petition challenging the caste-based headcount in Bihar “maintainable” as a public interest litigation (PIL) and asked the state’s advocate general (AG) to respond to queries challenging it, lawyer for the petitioner said.

Hearing the petition during pre-admission stage on Friday, the division bench of chief justice K. Vinod Chandran and Justice Madhuresh Prasad listed the matter for April 18.

“The court will now examine the decision of the government of Bihar with respect to the caste-based survey and see whether it is in public interest,” said Dinu Kumar, counsel for petitioner Akhilesh Kumar, a social worker.

The petitioner has challenged the state’s exercise on the ground that it was not a survey for a sample population, but a census, involving house-to-house enumeration of all people, which only the Centre could notify.

“As per Section 3 of the Census Act, 1948, and Rule 6A of Census Rule, 1990, the Centre has made no such declaration for a caste-based survey or census in Bihar,” he added.

The court had earlier rejected advocate general PK Shahi’s argument that the petitioner had no locus standi to challenge the government decision on the caste-based survey.

The petitioner’s counsel has also challenged the estimated expenditure of ₹500 crore for the survey through the Bihar Contingency Fund, which, he said, was to meet unforeseen expenditure.

He also said the state government’s gazette notification of June 6 last year, notifying about the caste-based survey, did not mention the intention behind conducting the survey. Besides, the state’s annual budget also did not make a mention of it.

The petitioner had earlier moved the Supreme Court directly, but the apex court asked him in January to route the case through the Patna high court. The case was filed in the Patna high court on March 14.

The second round of the month-long caste-based survey in Bihar, involving over 3.04 lakh enumerators, who will ask respondents 17 questions, including those on education and socio-economic parameters, besides caste, among the 203 notified in Bihar, begins on April 15. It will involve around 13 crore people in an estimated 3 crore households in the state.

The first round of the survey, to mark the households and list the name of heads of families and count the number of family members, was held between January 7 and 21.