A BJP MLA from Manipur has petitioned the Supreme Court to overturn the Manipur High Court’s ruling giving the Meitei community scheduled tribe status as a tribe in Manipur.
The Meitei community was never recognised as a tribe, according to the petition submitted by Dinganglung Gangmei, the chairman of the Manipur Legislative Assembly’s Hill Areas Committee (HAC).
The petition also claimed that only the State, not the High Court, has the authority to decide which tribe to recommend for inclusion on the Scheduled Tribes List.
The Meitei community should be taken into consideration for the Scheduled Tribes list, the High Court ordered the State to consider on March 27. The order is wholly illegal and needs to be overturned, according to the appeal filed against the High Court order.
“The High Court ought to have realised that it was a political problem in which the High Court had no role to play and the political disputes had to be resolved politically. By getting into the political area and making a categorical order that the State government is directed to submit a recommendation for the inclusion of the Meiteis in the Scheduled Tribe list to the Central government, the High Court ambiguously and in all probability inadvertently gave rise to strong misgivings and worries and tensions among the tribals,” the appeal stated.
The High Court’s order was also the subject of an appeal. The All Tribal Students Union of Manipur (ATSUM) rally on May 3 sparked clashes between the Christian tribal Kuki and the Hindu Meiteis in Manipur. The state has been engulfed in violence for days, and the central government had to use paramilitary forces to bring things under control.
