High Court moved against intensive household survey
Court asked to give direction to state
Hyderabad: Aggrieved by the decision of the Telangana state government to conduct intensive household survey on August 19, a woman advocate of the city on Monday moved the Hyderabad High Court.
Ms Seetha Lakshmi contended that her right to move freely and liberty under Article 19(d) and 21 of the Constitu-tion are to be infringed on the day as the state government asked every person to stay at home and declared a public holiday for the proposed survey. She submitted that the decision of the government was against the Collection of Statistics Act, 2008, and Rules framed there under.
She said that people are entitled to know, by way of gazette notification, the subject and purpose of collection of statistics, nature of information to be collected, natu-re of informants from whom data may be collected, in order to facilitate them be prepared to answer to the queries and also object to any questions which are beyond the scope of the Act.
She told the court that the state government cannot collect the data relating to any matter falling under List-I (Un-ion List) of the VII Schedule of the Constitution.
She argued that details like income tax, banking, insurance, citizenship which fall under the Union List are sought to be asked during the survey, which is beyond the powers of the state government.
She urged the court to direct the government not to conduct intensive household survey on August 19.