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Dr. Bhim Rao Ambedkar Vichar Manch Bihar, Patna vs. The State of Bihar & Ors.

Not available · 2024 INSC 528Decided 15 Jul 2024
Not available
Justice Vikram Nath · Justice Prashant Kumar Mishra

Background

The Bihar government issued a 2015 notification deleting the caste "Tanti-Tantwa" from the state's Extremely Backward Classes list and merging it into the Scheduled Castes list under the entry "Pan/Sawasi," claiming the two were the same community known by different names in different areas. Several petitioners, including the appellant organisation representing Scheduled Caste interests, challenged this before the Patna High Court, arguing the state government had no power to alter the Scheduled Castes list, which can only be changed by Parliament under Article 341 of the Constitution. The High Court dismissed all the challenges and upheld the state's notification, prompting an appeal to the Supreme Court.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court allowed the appeals and quashed the Bihar government's 2015 notification. It held that Article 341 is unambiguous: once a list of Scheduled Castes is notified under a Presidential Order, only Parliament, not any state government, can add to, delete from, or otherwise modify that list. The state's claim that it was merely "clarifying" that Tanti-Tantwa and Pan/Sawasi were the same community was rejected as a mala fide attempt to bypass the constitutional bar. Because the wrongdoing lay with the State's conduct and not with the individual members of the "Tanti-Tantwa" community who had availed of the (invalid) benefit in good faith, the Court declined to terminate their jobs or claw back benefits already given, but directed that the Scheduled Caste quota posts occupied by them be restored to the Scheduled Caste category, with the State finding a way to accommodate the affected individuals under their original Extremely Backward Classes category.

Lesson Learnt

Only Parliament can alter the official Scheduled Castes or Scheduled Tribes lists notified under Article 341 of the Constitution: no state government can add, merge, or delete castes from these lists on its own, even if it frames the change as a mere "clarification"; and when such an unconstitutional move is later struck down, courts may still protect innocent individuals who benefited from it in good faith while restoring the quota system's integrity going forward.

Official source (sci.gov.in)View Judgment (PDF)

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