Prabhat Kumar Munna v. The State Of Bihar

IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT PATNA

Civil Writ Jurisdiction Case No.11733 of 2024 ====================================================== Prabhat Kumar Munna S/o Shree Bachcha Jee Choubey R/o-Janakpuri Road no-1, Gola Road, Danapur, P.S.-Rupaspur, District-Patna. ... ... Petitioner/s

Versus

1.

The State of Bihar through the Chief Secretary, New Secretariat, Patna, Bihar.

2.

The Principal Secretary, Department of General Administration, Government of Bihar, Patna.

3.

The Additional Chief Secretary, Government of Bihar, Patna. 4.

The Principal Secretary to the Governor's Secretariat, Government of Bihar, Patna.

5.

The Principal Secretary to the Chief Minister, Government of Bihar, Patna. 6.

The Additional Director, Evaluation Directorate, Economic and Statistics Directorate, Bihar, Patna.

... ... Respondent/s ====================================================== Appearance :

For the Petitioner/s :

Mr.Dipak Kumar, Advocate For the State :

Mr. Vikas Kumar, AC to AG For the Hon'ble Chancellor Raj Bhawan, Patna :

Mr. Janardan Pd. Singh, Sr. Advocate Mr. Rajiv Ranjan Kumar Pandey, Advocate ====================================================== CORAM: HONOURABLE THE CHIEF JUSTICE and HONOURABLE MR. JUSTICE PARTHA SARTHY ORAL ORDER (Per: HONOURABLE THE CHIEF JUSTICE) 14-08-2024 The writ petition, in the nature of a Public Interest Litigation, seeks publication of the data pertaining to Caste-wise Agricultural Land Holdings as collected in the Caste Survey undertaken by a notification dated 06.06.2022.

2. The Caste Survey itself is a policy decision taken by the State Government so as to ensure upliftment of the various backward communities and marginalized sections of

Patna High Court CWJC No.11733 of 2024(2) dt.14-08-2024 2/2 people. The data collected is essentially for designing schemes to enable and ensure equal participation and betterment of status to the downtrodden sections in the State. The details collected, whether is for public consumption or not, is a moot question, and in any event, it is a decision left to the State Government; which cannot be precipitated by judicial orders.

3. We find absolutely no public interest in the publication of such details which have been collected for a specific purpose; the furtherance of which is perfectly within the policy domain of the State Government.

4. From the discussions at the hearing of the case; perceiving the trend of the thought process, the learned Counsel for the petitioner sought withdrawal of the writ petition.

5. We find absolutely no public interest in the prayer sought for and only on the specific permission sought by the petitioner's Counsel, the writ petition is dismissed as withdrawn.

(K. Vinod Chandran, CJ) (Partha Sarthy, J) P.K.P./- U