SC to hear pleas challenging Patna HC order on Bihar caste survey on October 6

The Supreme Court on Tuesday said that it will hear on October 6 pleas challenging the Patna High Courts August 1 order giving the goahead for a caste survey in BiharA bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna and SVN Bhatti told Solicitor General Tushar Mehta that it has listed the pleas for hearingThe bench made the remark after Mehta sought adjournment in a different matter pertaining to the Haryana State Industrial and Infrastructure Development Corporation Ltd and sought listing it on FridayOn Monday the Nitish Kumar government in Bihar released findings of its muchawaited caste survey months ahead of the 2024 Parliamentary elections which revealed that OBCs and EBCs constitute a whopping 63 per cent of the states total populationAccording to the data released the states total population stood at a little over 1307 crore out of which the Extremely Backward Classes 36 per cent were the largest social segment followed by the Other Backward Classes at 2713 per centThe survey also stated that Yadavs the OBC group to which Deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Yadav belongs were the largest in terms of the population accounting for 1427 per cent of the totalDalits also known as the Scheduled Castes accounted for 1965 per cent of the total population in the state which is also home to nearly 22 lakh 168 per cent people belonging to the Scheduled TribesOn September 6 the top court had deferred for October 3 the hearing on pleas challenging the Patna High Courts August 1 order giving the goahead for a caste survey in BiharOn August 7 the top court had refused to stay the Patna High Courts order giving the goahead for a caste survey in Bihar and deferred the hearing on petitions challenging it to August 14Besides a plea by NGO Ek Soch Ek Paryas several other petitions have been filed including one by Nalanda resident Akhilesh Kumar who has contended that the notification issued by the state government for the exercise is against the constitutional mandateKumars petition says in terms of the constitutional mandate only the Union government is empowered to conduct a censusThe high court had said in its 101page verdict We find the action of the state to be perfectly valid initiated with due competence with the legitimate aim of providing development with justiceA day after the high court held the caste survey as valid the state government had swung into action and suspended all ongoing training programmes for teachers so they can be engaged for early completion of the exerciseThe Nitish Kumar government had said on August 25 that the survey has been completed and data will be made public soonSenior advocate C S Vaidyanathan who represents a petitioner in the case had opposed making the data public contending it will infringe peoples right to privacyThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever