The Supreme Court will hear a petition challenging the Bihar government’s notification for conducting a caste-based survey on Friday, next week. The petition, filed before the apex court by Nalanda resident Akhilesh Kumar, seeks to quash the state government’s notification. The petitioner said that the subject of the census falls in List 1 and only the Parliament can do anything about it. The state government launched the caste survey exercise on January 7 this year. It plans to compile data on each family digitally through a mobile application as part of the eight-level survey — from the panchayat to the district level. The mobile app will have a set of questions in a format, mentioning place, caste, the number of people in a family, their profession, and annual income, among others. The government plans to complete the process in about two or three months.
