‘Your caste is known to your neighbours’: Supreme Court on Bihar caste survey

Satya Prakash

New Delhi, August 18

The Supreme Court on Friday said it wouldn’t stay the publication of results of a caste survey being conducted by the Bihar Government in the state results unless a prima facie case is made out for it.

“We are not going to stay anything unless there is a prima facie case… the exercise has already been completed … there is a judgment in their (State’s) favour,” a Bench led by Justice Sanjiv Khanna said, posting the matter for further hearing on August 21.

During the hearing, the Bench said only cumulative figures were released to the public through the survey, not individual details of caste.

It also commented on the malaise of the caste system in Bihar. “Your caste is known to your neighbours. In Bihar, unfortunately, it‘s true. In Delhi, we don’t know,” Justice Khanna remarked.

‘Ek Soch Ek Paryas – an NGO and Nalanda resident Akhilesh Kumar have challenged the August 1 verdict of the Patna High Court upholding the June 6, 2022 notification for caste survey. It was actually a census which in terms of the constitutional mandate, only the Union Government was empowered to conduct, they contended.

On behalf of one of the petitioners, senior counsel CS Vaidyanathan contended no one could be compelled to disclose such details.

“How can anyone be compelled to disclose their religion, gender, or monthly income? Please look at the form, the only thing voluntary (to submit) is Aadhar … The question is: can somebody be compelled to give these details without a law?” Vaidyanathan wondered.

“A law cannot be an executive notification…it has to be a statutory law,” Vaidyanathan said, citing the 2017 Constitution Bench ruling in the Puttaswamy case that declared the right to privacy a fundamental right.

Maintaining that the right to privacy can be restricted only on the basis of a statutory law that’s fair and reasonable and has a legitimate object, Vaidyanathan submitted that there was no such law to support the caste survey in Bihar.

The Patna High Court had on August 1 rejected petitions challenging the caste survey, saying, “We find the action of the state to be perfectly valid, initiated with due competence, with the legitimate aim of providing development with justice.”

A day after the high court’s verdict holding the caste survey as ”valid”, Nitish Kumar Government had suspended all ongoing training programmes for teachers and asked them to complete the survey at the earliest.

The first phase of the exercise was completed on January 21. Around 15,000 officials, including enumerators and observers, had been assigned various responsibilities for the door-to-door survey which will cost around Rs 500 crore.