State Govt Has No Authority To Tinker With Lists Of Scheduled Castes Published Under Article 341 Of Constitution: SC

The Supreme Court held that the State Government has no power to tinker with the lists of Scheduled Castes published under Article 341 of the Constitution.

The Court held thus in a batch of two civil appeals filed against the judgment of the Patna High Court by which it dismissed the writ petitions and appeal, challenging the notification of the State Government.

The two-Judge Bench of Justice Vikram Nath and Justice Prashant Kumar Mishra observed, “Having considered the submissions advanced, we have no hesitation in holding that the Resolution dated 01.07.2015 was patently illegal, erroneous as the State Government had no competence/ authority/power to tinker with the lists of Scheduled Castes published under Article 341 of the Constitution. The submission of the respondent State that Resolution dated 01.07.2015 was only clarificatory is not worth considering for a moment and deserves outright rejection. Whether or not it was synonymous or integral part of the Entry-20 of the lists of Schedule Castes, it could not have been added without any law being made by the Parliament.”

The Bench emphasised that whether synonymous or not, any inclusion or exclusion of any caste, race or tribe or part of or group within the castes, races or tribes has to be, by law made by the Parliament, and not by any other mode or manner.

Senior Advocate Indira Jai Singh appeared for the appellants while Senior Advocates Ranjeet Kumar, Salman Khurshid, Rakesh Dwivedi, V. Giri, and Additional Solicitor General Aishwarya Bhati appeared for the respondents.

In this case, the State Government passed a Resolution based upon consideration of recommendations by the State Backward Commission which had recommended that in the list of Extremely Backward Classes published under the Bihar Reservation of Vacancies in Posts and Services (for Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and other Backward Classes) Act, 1991, the caste “Tanti-Tantwa” recorded at Serial No. 33 be deleted and the said “Tanti-Tantwa” be merged in the Scheduled Castes list with the caste 'Pan/Sawasi' mentioned at Serial No. 20 so that they could get benefit of the Scheduled Castes.

The challenge before the Division Bench was to the second part of the aforesaid Resolution whereby “Tanti-Tantwa” case was sought to be merged with Entry 20 of the Scheduled Castes list namely, the caste of 'Pan/Sawasi' and to extend all benefits of the Scheduled Castes. The challenge was mainly on the ground that the State Government had no competence/authority/power to add a caste or sub-caste to any entry in the Scheduled Castes list notified under the Presidential Order under Article 341 of the Constitution. As the High Court dismissed the writ petitions and appeal of the appellants, they approached the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court in the above context of the case noted, “The State knew very well that it had no authority and had accordingly forwarded its request to the Union of India in the year 2011. The said request was not accepted and returned for further comments/justification/review. Ignoring the same, the State proceeded to issue the Circular dated 01.07.2015. The State may be justified in deleting “Tanti-Tantwa” from the Extremely Backward Classes list on the recommendation of the State Backward Commission, but beyond that to merge “Tanti-Tantwa” with 'Pan, Sawasi, Panr' under Entry 20 of the list of Scheduled Castes was nothing short of mala fide exercise for whatever good, bad or indifferent reasons, the State may have thought at that moment.”

The Court said that whether or not to include or exclude any caste in the list of Extremely Backward Class would be within the domain of the Commission and that the Commission would have no jurisdiction to make recommendation with respect to any caste being included in the Scheduled Castes lists and, even if it makes such a recommendation, right or wrong, the State has no authority to proceed to implement the same when it was fully aware that the Constitution does not permit it to do so.

“The Provisions of Article 341 sub Clause 1 and sub-Clause 2 are very clear and discrete. There is no ambiguity or vagueness otherwise requiring any interpretation other than what is mentioned therein. The State of Bihar has tried to read something in order to suit its own ends for whatever reason, we are not commenting on the same”, it added.

Furthermore, the Court said that the High Court fell in serious error in upholding the notification on a completely wrong premise without referring to Article 341 of the Constitution.

“In the present case, the action of the State is found to be mala fide and de hors the constitutional provisions. The State cannot be pardoned for the mischief done by it. Depriving the members of the Scheduled Castes covered by the lists under Article 341 of the Constitution is a serious issue. Any person not deserving and not covered by such list if extended such benefit for deliberate and mischievous reasons by the State, cannot take away the benefit of the members of the Scheduled Castes. Such appointments would under law on the findings recorded would be liable to be set aside. However, as we have found fault with the conduct of the State and not of any individual member of the “Tanti Tantwa” community, we do not wish to direct that their services may be terminated or that recovery may be made for illegal appointments or withdrawal of other benefits which may have been extended”, it also remarked.

The Court, therefore, directed that all such posts of the Scheduled Castes reserved quota which have been extended to the members of the “Tanti-Tantwa” community appointed subsequent to the Resolution be returned to the SC Quota and all such members of the “Tanti-Tantwa” community, who have been extended such benefit may be accommodated under their original category of Extremely Backward Classes, for which the State may take appropriate measures.

Accordingly, the Apex Court allowed the appeals and quashed the impugned Resolution.

Cause Title- Dr. Bhim Rao Ambedkar Vichar Manch Bihar, Patna v. The State of Bihar & Ors. (Neutral Citation: 2024 INSC 528)

Appearance:

Appellants: Senior Advocate Indira Jai Singh, Advocates Deepak Jain, K.B. Pradeep, Jaspreet Aulakh, Anoushka Singh, Dashampreet Kaur, AOR Vaibhav Manu Srivastava, and Advocate Twinkle Gupta.

Respondents: Senior Advocates Ranjeet Kumar, Salman Khurshid, Rakesh Dwivedi, V. Giri, Rakesh Khanna, ASG Aishwarya Bhati, AOR Manish Kumar, Advocates Suyash Vyas, Animesh Kumar, AOR Neeraj Shekhar, Advocates Nishant Kumar, Aprajita, Ayush Kumar, Amrendra Singh, Ram Bachan Choudhary, Kshama Sharma, Kartik Kumar, AOR Navin Prakash, Advocates Rahul Narang, Rao Vishwaja, Harshed Sundar, Nihar Dharmadhikari, Ram Shankar Das, AOR Lubna Naaz, Advocates Zafar Khurshid, Amit Singh Chauhan, Mohit Kocchhar, Rajat Nair, Swati Ghildiyal, Shivika Mehra, Shagun Thakur, Satvika Thakur, Prabhati Nayak, AOR Amrish Kumar, Advocate B S Rajesh Agrajit, AOR Shyamal Kumar, Advocates Rakesh Kumar, Sukhdeep Kaur, Bitu Kumar Singh, Jyoti Rana, Satya Veer Singh, Priya Nagar, Meetu Goswami, Siddharth Goswami, Vinay Kumar Ojha, Raj Bala, AORs Ranjan Nikhil Dharnidhar, Anilendra Pandey, Advocates Priya Kashyap, Rajeev Kumar Ranjan, and C. P. Singh.

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