In a big relief for Chief Minister Nitish Kumar-led Bihar government, the Supreme Court on Friday refused to restrain it from publishing more data from its caste survey. Issuing a formal notice on a batch of pleas challenging the August 1 order of the Patna High Court that gave the go-ahead for the caste survey in Bihar, a bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna and S V N Bhatti said the top court cannot stop the state from taking any policy decision.
The top court has listed the matter for further hearing in January, 2024.
The bench rejected the objections of the petitioners that the state government had preempted the stay order by publishing some data. The petitioners also demanded that a complete stay should be ordered on further publication of data.
“We are not staying anything at this moment. We cannot stop the state govt or any govt from taking a policy decision. That would be wrong…We are going to examine the other issue regarding the power of the state govt to conduct this exercise,” the bench said.
Senior advocate Aprajita Singh, appearing for the petitioners, said there was a breach of privacy in the matter and the High Court order was wrong.
To this, the bench said since the name and other identities of any individual have not been published, therefore the argument that there was a breach of privacy may not be correct.
“The more important issue for consideration of the court is breakdown of data and its availability to the public,” the bench said.
On October 2, the Nitish Kumar government in Bihar released findings of its caste survey, months ahead of the 2024 Parliamentary elections. The data revealed that OBCs and EBCs constitute a whopping 63 per cent of the state’s total population.
(With PTI Inputs)
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