A bench comprising Justices Sanjiv Khanna and S.V.N. Bhatti ordered that the matter will not be deleted from the causelist for Friday after it was mentioned that the state government released caste-based survey data on October 2.  

On the day of Mahatma Gandhi’s Jayanti, the Bihar government released the much-awaited caste-based survey.

As per the report, Extremely Backward Classes (EBC) comprise 36.01 per cent of the population, the Other Backward Classes (OBC) 27 per cent, Scheduled Castes 19.65 per cent, Scheduled Tribes 1.68 per cent, while the Upper Castes constitute 15.52 per cent of the total population of over 13 crore people in the state.

Meanwhile, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has called for an all-party meeting on Tuesday to make policies in the interest of common people.

It may be recalled that the Supreme Court had repeatedly refused to pass any interim order staying the survey process or publication of the outcomes of the survey, though it was contended that the matter will become infructuous post publication of the data.

In the last hearing on September 6, the top court had deferred hearing in October on the clutch of special leave petitions filed against the Patna High Court’s order dismissing pleas challenging the caste-based survey.

The petitioners before the apex court pleaded that only the Union government had the authority to conduct a census in India and the Bihar government had no authority to decide and notify the conduct of a caste-based survey in the state.