Bihar: Another Petition In Supreme Court Against Caste-Based Census

The Supreme Court on Wednesday has agreed to hear the petition of Hindu Sena against caste census in Bihar. The Top Court will hear the Hindu Sena’s petition along with other petitions against the caste census on January 20. The petitioner’s counsel today urged the Supreme Court Chief Justice DY Chandrachud for an early hearing. The CJI said that he would hear the matter on January 20.

National President of Hindu Sena Vishnu Gupta filed a petition in the Supreme Court demanding a stay on the notification of the caste census by the Bihar government. The Petitioner Vishnu Gupta has alleged that the Nitish government wants to break the integrity and unity of India by conducting caste census.

Eariler, Akhilesh Kumar, a resident of Nalanda, Bihar, has filed a petition demanding the cancellation of the notification issued by the state government on June 6. The petitioner said that that no state has the right to conduct census under the constitution. Even under the Census Act of 1948, the state government has not been given the right to conduct census, it added.

This step of the state government is going to promote social disharmony as well as the notification of caste census is against the basic spirit of the constitution, the plea added.

While citing the decision of the Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court in the Abhiram Singh case in 2017, the petitioner said that, in this decision, the Supreme Court had said that seeking votes on caste and communal grounds is wrong, but for political reasons in Bihar Efforts are being made to divide the society on the basis of caste, the plea said.