Lagatar24 Desk
Patna, August 1: All petitions opposing the state government’s conduct of a caste survey in Bihar were dismissed by the Patna High Court on Tuesday.
The Bihar caste survey will be conducted in two stages.
The state government carried out the first phase in January of this year, during which a household counting exercise was undertaken.
The survey’s second phase, focused on gathering information about people’s caste and socioeconomic circumstances, commenced on April 15.
It was intended to wrap up the entire procedure by May of this year. On May 4, the High Court, however, stayed the caste census.
A bench consisting of Chief Justice K Vinod Chandran and Justice Madhuresh Prasad issued the ruling regarding the three petitions asking for a stay in the Bihar caste survey.
The bench issued a stay order after concluding that the survey was truly a census that could only be conducted by the Central government.
“We find that the caste-based survey is a census in the garb of a survey; the power to carry out which is exclusively on the Union Parliament which has also enacted a Census Act, 1948,” the court had then said.
As a result, the High Court’s ruling halting the caste-based survey was challenged by the Bihar government in the Supreme Court.
However, the Supreme Court declined to lift the stay.
The Patna High Court then took the case under consideration and dismissed the challenge on Tuesday.
