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Concerns raised by two volunteer groups and three social activists prompted the Patna High Court to issue a temporary order suspending the CT scan in Bihar 11 days before it is to be completed.
The Patna High Court had filed five petitions challenging the state government’s decision to conduct the two-stage stratigraphic survey. Youth for Equality, one of the five petitioners, is a voluntary organization set up on April 4, 2006, by students of All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Indian Institutes of Technology, Indian Institutes of Management and some other central institutions. University students amid the then UPA government’s decision to grant a 27 percent reservation for other backward classes in all central educational institutions.
Abhinav Srivastava, petitioner for Youth for Equality, said: “Our main disagreement was against the process which does not guarantee the enshrined principle of equality. The state government is not specific and clear behind its idea of caste survey.” The other petitioners are the Delhi-based volunteer group “Ek Such Ek Prayas” and three activists from Bihar – Akhilesh Kumar, Muskaan Kumar and Reshma Prasad.
Dino Kumar, a lawyer representing one of the five petitioners, raised questions about the cost of Rs 500 crore being incurred in the stratigraphic survey process. The lawyer said, “The money is being taken from the emergency fund. We want to know whether the amount approved was in accordance with the law and whether there was a strong rationale behind spending such a huge amount on the operation.”
Reshma Prasad, a transgender activist, said: “The court’s temporary order proves that we have asked some tough and valid questions. We want to define the third gender separately as a gender and not as a caste.”
The court order showed that the concerns of the Lohars (blacksmiths), a highly backward caste, were also raised as there was no separate caste column for them and they had to be enumerated as a sub-caste of the Kamars (who are carpenters) or Lohara (a tabular tribe), which they refused to accept.
The state government completed the first phase of the stratigraphic survey between January 7 and 21 and was conducting the second phase from April 15, which was scheduled to be completed on May 15. phases in the census block, which could contain 70-200 homes. A government official said, “Although we have not paid the meter, almost 60 percent of the process has been completed, which effectively means that 60 percent of the total Rs 500 crore (roughly Rs 300 crore) has already been counted.”
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