New Delhi:
The Supreme Court today refused to stop the Bihar government from publishing further data from its caste survey, saying it would be wrong to stop a state from making a policy decision.
The court rejected the petitioners’ objections that the state government would pre-empt the stay order by publishing some data and directed that upon further publication of the data, a complete stay would be ordered.
Justice Sanjeev Khanna told the petitioners that the Supreme Court order is very detailed on why the data is needed for policy making.
“The data is now public. So what do you want from us now?” the bench asked the petitioners.
On October 2, the Nitish Kumar government in Bihar released the findings of its caste survey, months ahead of the 2024 assembly elections.
The census showed that 36% of the state’s 13.1 crore strong population belongs to extremely backward classes, 27.1% to backward classes, 19.7% to scheduled castes and 1.7% to scheduled tribes. The general population accounts for 15.5%.
