SC Directs Bihar Government to Make Public Break-Up of Caste Survey Data

New Delhi: The Supreme Court has directed the Bihar government to make the break-up of its caste survey data available in the public domain to enable those aggrieved to challenge the findings.

A division Bench of Justice Sanjiv Khanna and Justice Dipankar Datta, however, declined the petitioners's plea for interim relief; the petitioners had challenged the survey and Patna high court order that upheld the Bihar government's move to conduct such an exercise.

"There is no question of interim relief as they (the government) have a high court order in their favour. Now that the data has been put in the public domain, there are two to three aspects which remain. First is the legal issue – the correctness of the high court judgement and legality of such an exercise," the Bench said, according to PTI.

Senior advocate Raju Ramachandran, who appeared for the petitioners, brought to the notice of the court that the authorities had already begun implementing survey findings since the data was already out. He said the state government had already raised the reservation for SCs, STs, Other Backward Classes (OBCs), Extremely Backward Classes, and Economically Weaker Sections (EWS) to a total of 75% from the existing 50%.

To this, the court said the matter about the increase in the reservation should be challenged before the Patna high court, and said the entire matter needs to be heard at length. The counsel for the petitioners in response said that they had already moved the high court, challenging the increase in the reservation.

Describing it as an important issue, Ramachandran said since the state government is already acting upon the data, the matter be listed next week so that the petitioners can argue for interim relief. "What interim relief? They (the Bihar government) have a high court judgement in their favour," the Bench said in response.

Meanwhile, the Bihar government's lawyer, Shyam Divan, submitted to the court that the data, including the break-up, has been available in the public domain and anyone can see it on the designated website.

Speaking for the Bench, Justice Khanna said, "What I am more worried about is the availability of break-up of data. To what extent the government can withhold the data? You see, the entire break-up of data should be in the public domain so that anyone can challenge the inference drawn from it. Unless it is in the public domain, they can’t challenge it."

The opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has been accusing the Nitish Kumar government of irregularities in conducting the caste survey and calling the data collected "fake".

The Bench then told Divan to file a report on the caste survey and posted the matter for further hearing on February 5. The caste survey revealed that the OBCs and EBCs constituted a whopping 63% of the state’s population.

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