GUWAHATI: The Manipur High Court has allowed five tribal organisations to file an appeal against the March 27 contentious order that directed the state government to consider including the Meitei community in the Scheduled Tribes (STs) list.
In the March 27 order, the then acting Chief Justice MV Muralidharan had ordered: “The first respondent (state government) shall consider the case of the petitioners for inclusion of the Meetei/Meitei Community in the Scheduled Tribe list, expeditiously, preferably within a period four weeks…”
The order had triggered widespread protests in the state’s tribal areas leading to ethnic violence.
A division bench of Justices Ahanthem Bimol Singh and A Guneshwar Sharma in its October 19 order said, “The main grievance raised by the applicants is that they will be prejudicially affected if they are not given a chance to have a say or to raise objection in the matter of granting STs status to the Meetei/Meitei Community and that their rights and interests will be prejudicially affected unless they are given an opportunity to challenge the judgment and order by filing a writ appeal...”
Senior advocate Colin Gonsalves argued that the applicants are aggrieved because if the Meetei/Meitei community is wrongly granted STs status, then it will adversely affect the existing STs in employment and education where reservation exists. Further, he argued the Meetei/Meitei community, being dominant and advanced politically, economically and educationally, will grab the majority of the ST reserved seats.
“Secondly, most of the land in the hills are owned by the tribals…and if the Meetei/Meitei community gets ST status, then they will enter the hill area in large numbers and they will attempt to grab the land of the tribals,” he further argued.
Additional Advocate General M Devananda submitted that the present application was filed without any legal basis and on mere unfounded apprehension to delay the execution of the March 27 order.
“…the judgment and order (of March 27) merely directed the state government to submit a recommendation for initiating the process for inclusion of the Meeteis/Meiteis in the STs list and not for inclusion of the Meeteis/Meiteis Community in the presidential order by circumventing the constitutional provisions and as such, the writ appeal sought to be filed by the applicants are not maintainable as there is no ground…” he argued.
The division bench was of the view that it would be just and proper to consider the connected appeal on merit for a just and proper adjudication of the issues.
“Taking into consideration the nature of the arguments advanced by the learned counsel appearing for the parties which needs to be examined and decided on the basis of the materials available in the connected writ appeal and writ petition and taking into consideration the nature of the grievances raised by the applicants, we are inclined to grant leave sought by the applicants in the present application,” the bench said.