The story so far: The Supreme Court is set to hear on August 18 a batch of petitions challenging the Patna High Court’s verdict upholding the Bihar government’s ongoing caste survey. A Bench of Justices Sanjay Khanna and SVN Bhatti on August 14 declined a plea seeking a stay on the controversial survey.
On August 1, in a significant relief to Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, the Patna High Court allowed the State government to continue with the survey after observing that the action of the State was perfectly valid, initiated with due competence, and in the furtherance of a ‘compelling public interest’.
On May 4, the High Court had issued an interim stay on the survey. Following this, the State government filed a petition seeking an early hearing of the case which the High Court eventually dismissed. Subsequently, the State government approached the Supreme Court to lift the stay, but the Supreme Court on May 18 declined the relief observing that the High Court had kept the matter for hearing on July 3.
