The Supreme Court refused to issue a status quo order on the Bihar caste census on Friday, stating that preventing the state government from making policy decisions would be unconstitutional.
The Supreme Court told petitioners that while Bihar’s caste census violated their right to privacy, the main problem was the breakdown of data, which will be considered by the court.
The Supreme Court issued a notice to the Bihar government on a bundle of petitions contesting the state’s caste census and scheduled the matter for hearing in January. Bihar claims that data collection is mandated by the Supreme Court and that the survey is not unlawful.
“Historic moment…,” says Manoj Jha of the Bihar Caste-Based Census.
The Extremely Backward Classes form 36% of the entire population of Bihar, followed by the Other Backward Classes, who account for 27.13%. Together, the two groups account for 63% of the state’s total population of 13.07 crore people. The overall category accounts for 15.52% of the total.
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Vivek Singh, the state development commissioner, published the survey data. According to the census, the Yadavs, the OBC group to whom deputy chief minister Tejashwi Yadav belongs, have the biggest population, accounting for 14.27 percent of the total.
Tejashwi Yadav, Deputy Chief Minister of Bihar, on the Bihar caste survey
