SC Refuses To Stay Patna HC Order Halting Caste Survey In Bihar

The Supreme Court on Thursday refused to lift Patna High Court stay order on the caste-based survey in Bihar.

The apex court, however, agreed to list the case on July 14 if the hearing before the High Court does not commence on July 3.

"The impugned order is an interim one and the court has posted the main writ for hearing on July 3. In fact, the state government on May 9 moved applications before the Court that were disposed of. The contention of Advocate General was specifically rejected and final opinions were expressed. In fact, the High Court has observed that the court was open to other contentions when taken up for hearing," Bar and Bench quoted the judge as saying.

In an appeal filed before the Supreme Court against the May 4 order of the high court, the state government said the stay will adversely affect the entire exercise.

The state government said the collection of caste-based data is a constitutional mandate under Articles 15 and 16 of the Constitution.

"The State has already completed more than 80 per cent of the survey work in some districts and less than 10 per cent of work is pending. The entire machinery is working at ground level. There shall be no harm in completing the exercise subject to final adjudication of the dispute," the state government said in its plea.

"The time gap to complete the survey would adversely affect the survey since this would not be contemporaneous data. The stay of collection of data itself would cause a huge loss to the State since, if finally the action of the State is upheld, the State would be required to put logistics in place with additional expenditure and burden on public exchequer," the plea said.