New Delhi: The Supreme Court today refused to restrain the Bihar government from publishing further data from its caste survey, saying that it would be wrong to stop a state from making a policy decision.
The court rejected the objections of the petitioners that the state government has preempted the stay order by publishing some data and demanded that a complete stay should be ordered on further publication of data.
Justice Sanjeev Khanna told the petitioners that the High Court order is very details on why the data is necessary for policy making.
"The data is now public. So what do you want from us now?" the bench asked the petitioners.
On October 2, the Nitish Kumar government in Bihar released findings of its caste survey, months ahead of the 2024 Parliamentary elections.
The census revealed that that 36% of the state's 13.1 crore-strong population belongs to Extremely Backward Classes, 27.1% to Backward Classes, 19.7% to Scheduled Castes, and 1.7% to Scheduled Tribes. The general population accounts for 15.5%.