ST STATUS - POLITY
News: Tribal
Affairs Ministry evades question on pending ST status requests
What's in the news?
● The
Ministry of Tribal Affairs (MoTA) evaded a direct question from Odisha’s
Congress MP, Saptagiri Sankar Ulaka, on the number of requests for Scheduled
Tribe status pending with the Union Government and appropriate authorities.
Key takeaways:
● The
task force, headed by then Tribal Affairs Secretary Hrusikesh Panda, had
concluded that the existing procedure for scheduling was too “cumbersome” and
“defeats the Constitutional agenda of affirmative action and inclusion”.
● It
had also called the criteria “obsolete” and thus recommended the priority
inclusion of over 40 communities whose requests were pending.
How are tribes added into the ST list?
● Scheduled
Castes are specified under the provisions of Article 341 of the Constitution of India. Government has laid down
Modalities for deciding claims for inclusion in, exclusion from and other
modifications in the list of Scheduled Castes.
● Article 342
specifies tribal communities or parts of or groups within tribes or tribal
communities that are deemed to be Scheduled Tribes in relation to that State or
UT.
● In accordance with these
provisions, the list of Scheduled Tribes is notified for each State or Union
Territory.
● These lists are only
valid within the jurisdiction of that State or UT.
● A community designated as
a Scheduled Tribe in one state does not have to be so in another.
Article 342:
● The
President may, with respect to any
State or Union territory, and where it is a state, after consultation with the Governor thereof by public
notification, specify the tribes or tribal communities or parts of or groups
within tribes or tribal communities which shall, for the purposes of this
constitution, is deemed to be scheduled tribes in relation to that state or
Union Territory, as the case may be.
● Parliament
may by law include in or exclude from the list of Scheduled tribes specified in
a notification issued under clause (1) any tribe or tribal community or part of
or group within any tribe or tribal community, but save as aforesaid, a
notification issued under the said clause shall not be varied by any subsequent
notification.
● Thus,
the first specification of Scheduled Tribes in relation to a particular State/
Union Territory is by a notified order of the President, after consultation
with the State governments concerned. These orders can be modified subsequently
only through an Act of Parliament.
Inclusion procedure:
● Adding
tribes to the ST list begins with a recommendation from the respective state
governments.
● These
recommendations are then forwarded to the Tribal
Affairs Ministry, who reviews them and forwards them to the Registrar General of India for
approval.
● The
list is then approved by the National
Commission for Scheduled Tribes before being sent to the Cabinet for a
final decision.