The bench also ruled that all data collected under the survey must remain confidential and accessible only to the Karnataka State Commission for Backward Classes.
Published Sep 25, 2025 | 5:39 PM ⚊ Updated Sep 25, 2025 | 6:06 PM
The order came after three days of hearings on a batch of petitions that questioned the legality of the survey and sought an interim stay.
Synopsis: The Karnataka High Court on Thursday refused to stay the State’s ongoing Social-Educational survey, but directed the State Backward Classes Commission to make clear that participation is voluntary. The bench instructed authorities to notify residents that enumerators cannot compel responses and that all collected data must remain confidential.
The Karnataka High Court on Thursday, 25 September, refused to stay the ongoing Social and educational survey being conducted by the State government but made it clear that participation in the exercise is voluntary.
A division bench of Chief Justice Vibhu Bakhru and Justice CM Joshi directed the State to issue a public notification clarifying that survey enumerators cannot compel residents to disclose information.
“If a participant declines to participate, enumerators will not take any further steps to persuade or cajole participants to divulge any information,” the court said.
The bench also ruled that all data collected under the survey must remain confidential and accessible only to the Karnataka State Commission for Backward Classes.
The Commission has been asked to file an affidavit within one day on the measures it will adopt to safeguard data security and confidentiality.
The order came after three days of hearings on a batch of petitions that questioned the legality of the survey and sought an interim stay.
The petitioners argued that linking caste particulars with personal identification such as Aadhaar numbers, ration cards, mobile numbers, and geo-tagging of households as part of the survey violated the fundamental right to privacy guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution.
They stressed that their objection was not against data collection itself but against the process adopted by the government.
The Karnataka State Commission for Backward Classes, which began the second such survey in a decade on Monday, told the court that the exercise is voluntary.
Senior Advocate Prof Ravivarma Kumar, appearing for the Commission, said, “There is no compulsion, everything is voluntary.”
The Union government also raised concerns over the survey during Wednesday’s hearing. Additional Solicitor General Arvind Kamath submitted, “In pith and substance, having regard to its universality, it is a census cloaked as a survey.” He questioned the purpose of the exercise if the State believed participation was not mandatory.
Senior Advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi, representing the State government, opposed the plea for a stay.
He submitted that the petitioners had mischaracterised the exercise as a caste census. “It is not a caste survey. Welfare measures cannot be done without statistical data,” he argued.
The court in turn asked the State why surveyors were not informing citizens that they were free not to answer questions.
“Where is it in the handbook that at the outset every person who goes to the houses says that they (people) have no obligation to answer, and there is no requirement to give your Aadhaar…Enumerator must tell them that we are doing this survey, and if you don’t want to give, we will go away,” the bench said on Wednesday.
“On the contrary, your instructions are to visit them again and again, and if they (people) still don’t give it to you for any reason, please tell your supervisor who will obviously do something else,” the court observed.
(Edited by Dese Gowda)
