HC seeks affidavit from Centre in survey form discrepancy

The Bombay High Court today directed the Union government to file its affidavit in response to a public interest litigation seeking correction of the survey data forms of 2011-2012 which wrongly mention 'Muslim' in the religion column instead of 'Islam'.
The PIL filed by Aziz Pathan sought a direction to the Union Ministry of Human Resource Development and the Census department to withdraw the data forms, circulate corrected forms and then declare the survey report.
According to the petition, the government while carrying out the socio, economic and caste/religious survey for the year 2011-12 issued forms to survey officers to collect data from the citizens.

"In 2013, the petitioner learnt that the data forms wrongly contained the word 'Muslim' in the religion column instead of Islam," the petition said.
The petitioner then made representations to the government regarding this, but got no response following which he approached the High Court.
A division bench of Justices S J Vazifdar and B P Colabawala directed the Union government to file its reply within two weeks.