Bihar: SC to Hear Petition Challenging Caste Census on January 20

The Supreme court on Thursday agreed to hear a new petition challenging the caste census in Bihar. An advocate today mentioned this plea before the Supreme Court seeking early listing hearing on the matter.

A bench headed by Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud today, tagged the petition with another similar plea.

On Wednesday the top court agreed to hear on January 20 a petition challenging the caste-based census being conducted by the Bihar government.

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

The Grand Alliance government in Bihar started the caste census in Bihar on January 7.