SC refuses to order status quo on publication of Bihar caste survey data

The Supreme Court on Friday refused to stay the Bihar government from publishing data collected from its caste-based survey. A Bench headed by Justice Sanjiv Khanna refused to be bothered by the fact that the State had outed the data when petitions challenging the legality of the survey was pending before the Supreme Court. “We are not staying this at the moment,” Justice Khanna replied, though at one point asking Mr. Diwan why the State had published the data when the case was still pending. The Union government had maintained that only the Centre and “no other body” was entitled to conduct “either census or any action akin to census” in its reply to the Supreme Court on the Bihar government’s caste-based survey.