Bihar News: Patna HC Assents To Caste Based Census

Patna: Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Tuesday got a major shot in the arm with the Patna High Court ruling that the government’s decision to have caste based census is justified.

The ruling prompted the national president of the Janata Dal (United) Rajiv Ranjan Singh alias Lallan Singh to suggest that there should be a countrywide caste census.

“We find the action of the state to be perfectly valid, initiated with due competence, with the legitimate aim of providing development with justice as proclaimed in the address to both the Houses,” said a division bench comprising Chief Justice K Vinod Chandran and Justice Partha Sarthy.

The survey “neither exercised nor contemplated any coercion to divulge the details” and passed the test of proportionality and did not violate “the rights of privacy of the individual”, the bench observed.

“The action of having caste census was in legitimate state interest,” the court said.

State started census in 2 phases

The state government had started a caste census in two phases on February 5, which was suspended following a set of public interest litigations opposing the action in Patna High Court and later in the Supreme Court.

The state government, represented by advocate general PK Shahi, told the high court that a caste based survey was necessary to identify extremely backward castes which were not in the 2011 census. It would also help the state in allocation of funds for the socially and economically backward castes, Shahi contended.

Hold caste based census in country

JD(U) welcomed the judgement and suggested that the Union government hold caste based census in the country. Singh alleged that the Bharatiya Janata Party had conspired to sabotage caste-based census through public interest litigations.

Both Houses of the Bihar legislature had in 2021 passed resolutions recommending a caste-based census for which the state cabinet sanctioned ₹550 crore as Centre claimed that states do not have the right to conduct a census and declined to finance the effort.