The Centre has withdrawn an affidavit filed before the Supreme Court in the Bihar caste survey case citing “inadvertent error” and filed a fresh affidavit.
Earlier, an affidavit was filed by the Central Government before the Supreme Court in which it said “No other body under the Constitution or otherwise is entitled to conduct the exercise of either census or any action akin to census”.
In a second affidavit filed on Monday evening, the Centre said that the above paragraph had “inadvertently crept in”.
“It is submitted that the Central Government has filed an Affidavit in the morning today. In the said Affidavit, inadvertently, para 5 has crept in. The said affidavit, therefore, stands withdrawn and this present Affidavit will be the Affidavit on behalf of the Central Government”, the latest affidavit stated; as per a report by LiveLaw.
The second affidavit has, however, retained the submission that a census is a statutory process governed by the Census Act of 1948, which was enacted in the exercise of the powers under Entry 69 of List I of the Constitution’s Seventh Schedule, and that the said Act empowers only the Central Government to conduct the census.
“The central government is committed to taking all affirmative actions for the upliftment of Scheduled Castes (SC), Scheduled Tribes (ST), Socially and Educationally Backward Classes (SEBC), and Other Backward Classes (OBC) in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution of India and the applicable law,” the fresh affidavit further says.
