Bihar caste based survey and legal challenges:

Subject :Polity

Section: Constitution

Context:

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.

More about the Caste Census news:

The Bihar government 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.
During the first phase of the caste survey the houses would be numbered and caste details would be sought.
The second phase of the exercise involves compiling the economic status of the people.
All composite information would be compiled in the app after scrutiny by senior officers.
The process of caste survey monitoring will involve the additional district magistrate (DM)/ district welfare officer/ district statistics officer at the top, with the DM concerned being the final monitoring authority. The next level will comprise the sub-divisional officer followed by the circle officer, block development officer, municipal commissioner/ chief executive officer.
The Panchayati Raj Institutions will be kept completely out of the process.

What are the legal angles involved:

The population census is a Union subject under Article 246 of India Constitution.
It is listed at serial number 69 of the seventh schedule of the constitution.
Census is conducted under the provisions of the Census Act, 1948.
The bill for this Act was piloted by Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, the then Home Minister of India.
The information collected during the population Census is so confidential that it is not even accessible to the courts of law.
The confidentiality is guaranteed by the Census Act, 1948. The law specifies penalties for both public and census officials for non-compliance or violation of any provision of the Act.
The census recorded at the beginning of every decade does not record any caste data other than for those listed as schedule cast.

History of Caste Census:

A population census was first carried out by the British colonial state in 1872.
The 65-page census enumerated the populations of various castes, including Brahmins, Kshatriyas and Rajputs across several provinces.
Caste populations were specifically counted based on their traditional occupations at the time.For instance, Hindus in the Madras province were counted in 17 sets, which included “priests, warriors, traders, agriculturists, shepherds and pastoral castes” among others.
The last time comprehensive data on caste was collected was in the 1931 Census.

Why has it not been carried out since 1931:

The categories of ‘Race, Caste or Tribe’ were replaced by the ‘Scheduled Tribe/ Scheduled Caste’.
Subsequent reports and studies have attributed to the belief that “including caste data in census enumeration will perpetuate the caste system and deepen social divisions”.
Recording of caste was abandoned after Indian Independence in 1947, to help smooth the growth of a secular state.

More about Socio-economic caste census (SECC)

It is a study of the socio-economic status of rural and urban households and allows ranking of households based on predefined parameters.
Census in Rural Areas has been conducted by the Department of Rural Development.
Census in Urban areas is under the administrative jurisdiction of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation.
It was also the first paperless census in India conducted on hand-held electronic devices by the government in 640 districts.