SC tags petition challenging caste census in Bihar with similar plea

NEW DELHI, (ANI): A lawyer on Thursday mentioned before the Supreme Court a petition challenging the caste census in Bihar. A bench headed by Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud tagged the petition with another similar plea.

On Wednesday, the Supreme Court agreed to give an urgent hearing to the petition challenging Bihar Government’s notification for conducting the Caste Census in the state. One of the petitions was moved in the top court recently by a social worker Akhilesh Kumar through Advocates Barun Kumar Sinha and Abhishek, who, in his petition, said, “That the cause of action arose on/from the impugned Notification dated 06.06.2022 issued by Deputy Secretary, Government of Bihar, whereby decision of the Government to conduct caste census has been communicated to the media and public at large.”

The petitioner Akhilesh Kumar through his advocates Barun Kumar Sinha and Abhishek had said that the decision of the State of Bihar is illegal, arbitrary, irrational, unconstitutional and without the authority of law. According to the petitioner’s submission, there are more than 200 castes in Bihar, which are classified as General Category, OBC (Other Backward Class), EBC (Economically Backward Class), Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribes.

As per the plea, in the state of Bihar, there are 113 castes which are known as OBC and EBC, eight castes are included in the category of Upper Caste, there are about 22 sub-castes which are included in the Scheduled Caste category and there are about 29 Sub Castes which are included in the scheduled category.

“The impugned Notification accords differential treatment without intelligible differentia to illegal decision of State of Bihar is illegal, arbitrary irrational and unconstitutional,” the petitioner Akhilesh Kumar said, urging the top court to issue a direction for quashing the impugned Notification dated January 6, 2022, and asked to direct the authority concerned to refrain from conducting the caste census as it is against the basic structure of the Constitution of India. (ANI)