Arunachal Pradesh ST list

Arunachal Pradesh ST list

Subject – Polity

Context – Parliament has passed the Constitution (Scheduled Tribes) Order (Amendment) Bill 2021. It seeks to amend the nomenclature of certain tribes from Arunachal Pradesh.

Constitutional Provision –

• Article 342(A) provides, as in the case of SCs, that there will be a Presidential list issued first in consultation with the governor of the state and any subsequent change in the list can be made only by parliamentary law.

Procedure –

• If this bill goes through, inclusion or exclusion of any caste subsequent to the initial press notification can be done only by an act of Parliament as in the case of SC and ST. In the case of SCs the criteria is untouchability.
• In the case of STs, the community must be shown to be a tribe which is isolated, and lives in vulnerable conditions. This has to be proved anthropologically.
• This is ensured by the long established process of referring every proposal for inclusion in the SC and ST list to the Registered General of India (RGI) that has an expert anthropological wing.
• Following this, the government moves a bill in the Parliament.