PROCEDURE FOR DECLARATION AS ST
- The term Scheduled Tribes is defined in the Constitution of India under Article 366(25) as such tribes or tribal communities or parts of groups within such tribes or tribal communities as are deemed under Article 342 to be Scheduled Tribes for the purposes of this Constitution.
- Article 342 prescribes the procedure to be followed in the matter of specification of Scheduled Tribes.
- In terms of Article 342(1), the President after consultation with the Governor notifies tribes as Scheduled Tribes.
- Only those communities who have been declared as such by the President through public notification will be considered as Scheduled Tribes.
- Any further amendment in the list is to be done through an Act of Parliament (Article 342(2)).
- Parliament by law includes or exclude from the list of Scheduled Tribes, any tribe.
- The list of Scheduled Tribes is State-specific. In other words, a community declared as Scheduled Tribe in one State need not be so in another State.
The criteria generally adopted for specification of a community as Scheduled Tribe are :
- indications of primitive traits
- distinctive culture
- shyness of Contact with the community at large
- geographical isolation.
These are not spelt out in the Constitution but have become well established. They take into account the:
- definitions in the 1931 Census,
- reports of the first Backward Classes Commission (Kalelkar Committee), 1955,
- Advisory Committee on Revision of SC / ST lists (Lokur Committee), 1965
- Joint Committee of Parliament on the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes Orders (Amendment) Bill, 1967 (Chanda Committee) 1969.
- There are over 700 tribes as notified under Article 342 of the Constitution of India.
- It is worth noting that no community has been specified as a Scheduled Tribe in relation to the States of Haryana and Punjab and the Union Territories of Chandigarh, Delhi and Puducherry.
