Plea in SC challenging Bihar govt's notification for conducting Caste Census

A plea has been moved in the Supreme Court seeking to quash Bihar Government's notification dated January 6, 2022 for conducting Caste Census in the State.

The petition was filed by social worker Akhilesh Kumar through Advocates Barun Kumar Sinha and Abhishek.

"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 petition said.

The petitioner said that the decision of the State of Bihar is illegal, arbitrary, irrational, unconstitutional, and without the authority of law.

The petitioner submitted that in Bihar, there are a total of more than 200 castes and all those castes are classified as General Category, OBC, EBC, Scheduled Caste, and Scheduled Tribes.

According to 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 29 about 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 said.

Hence, the petitioner urged the top court to issue a direction for quashing the impugned

Notification dated January 6, 2022, and to direct the authority concerned to refrain from conducting the caste census as it is against the basic structure of the Constitution of India.

( With inputs from ANI )