Shivamogga MP BY Raghavendra asked the Supreme Court to act against Karnataka’s Rs 500 crore caste survey, calling it unconstitutional and politically motivated. The High Court earlier made survey participation voluntary, while critics call it a “census cloaked as a survey.”
Member of Parliament from Shivamogga district in Karnataka, B.Y. Raghavendra has approached the Supreme Court, asking it to take suo motu action against the Karnataka state cabinet’s decision to hold a socio-economic and educational survey in the state.
He strongly opposed the move, saying it was against the principles of the Constitution and also a huge waste of public money.
Raghavendra said that the state government was spending Rs 500 crore in the name of this survey. According to him, the real aim of the government was not welfare but “to woo people of minorities, backward classes.”
He also attacked the ruling dispensation for already spending Rs 140 crore earlier on the Kantaraj Commission survey, which he said brought no results.
Currently, the survey is being conducted by the Karnataka State Commission for Backward Classes at a cost of around Rs 420 crore. It began on September 22 and will go on till October 7.
Recently, the Karnataka High Court refused to grant an interim stay on this survey. A division bench headed by Chief Justice Vibhu Bakhru and Justice C.M. Joshi stressed that participation in the survey must be voluntary.
The Court made it clear that the Karnataka State Commission for Backward Classes should issue a public notification saying that people
“are not obligated to disclose any information, and that any data provided is entirely at their discretion.”
Before the High Court, several petitioners challenged the exercise. They argued that the state government was indirectly carrying out a caste census, something which only the Union government has the constitutional power to do.
They claimed that the survey was so wide in scope that it was including enumeration of more than 500 castes, which could be misused for “political purposes.”
Petitioners also pointed out the lack of strong data protection measures, since the Collection of Statistics Act, 2008 does not cover this survey.
They further argued that under the garb of a state survey backed by the Karnataka State Backward Classes Commission, the government was actually conducting a caste census.
They called this a
“colourable exercise intended to enumerate castes in the state for political gains, warning that such data could be weaponised.”
Concerns were also raised that the list of communities in this survey artificially created new caste identities.
Petitioners said that
“several previously unknown castes have been included in the newly released enumeration list, which now runs to more than 500 entries.”
They claimed that
“many sub-castes… have been treated as independent castes carved out of a main caste, creating confusion for individuals.”
Petitioners also drew attention to the
“addition of new Christian castes in the list.” For them, this made the entire exercise “manifestly arbitrary.”
They reminded the Court that in 2015, a caste survey was carried out for Rs 150 crore, but its findings were never published. They said the current exercise was no different and lacked transparency.
Privacy worries were also highlighted because of geo-tagging of households and the use of Aadhaar for verification. Petitioners also criticised the government for carrying out the process without proper public consultation.
Defending the decision, the Karnataka government argued that this survey was necessary for better targeted welfare measures. It said that accurate and updated caste-wise socio-economic data is very important for policy-making.
The government has set aside Rs 420 crore for this door-to-door data collection, which is being carried out by teachers and ASHA workers.
Representing the Union government, Additional Solicitor General Arvind Kamath opposed Karnataka’s exercise. He said the Constitutional framework allows only the Central government to conduct a proper census, which is the only source of secure and legitimate data.
He added that census questionnaires are always issued by gazetted notification, while in the case of Karnataka there is “no such mandate.” He concluded that the ongoing exercise was nothing but “a census cloaked as a survey.”
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