A Manipur High Court order on Wednesday pertaining to recommendation of Meetei/Meitei in the ST list has sent confusing signals on how the state government is supposed to act, according to sources.
A single bench of High Court of Manipur by Justice Golmei Gaiphulshillu had on Wednesday ordered the removal of a paragraph from the March 27, 2023 order passed by the then Acting Chief Justice MV Muralidharan which directed the state government to consider the inclusion of the Meitei community in the scheduled tribe list.
Justice Muralidharan had given three directions on a petition filed by members of the Meitei Tribe Union. The directions are as follows:
i) The writ petition is disposed of.
ii) The first respondent is directed to submit the recommendation in reply to the letter dated May 29, 2013 of the Ministry of Tribal Affairs, Government of India.
iii) The first respondent shall consider the case of the petitioners for inclusion of the Meetei/Meitei community on the Scheduled Tribe list, expeditiously, preferably within a period of four weeks from the date of receipt a copy of the in terms of the averments set out in the writ petition and in line of the order passed in WP(C) No 4281 of 2002 dated May 26, 2003 by the Gauhati High Court.
Several organisations led by the All Manipur Tribal Union had then moved the High Court on May 3, seeking permission to file a third-party appeal against the March order.
The High Court order of March 27, 2023made public in April, has been considered as the trigger for the ongoing ethnic conflict between the Meitei and the tribal Kuki-Zo communities in Manipur.
The direction allegedly led to widespread violence in the state, leading the Supreme Court to eventually take suo motu cognisance of the issue.
In October 2023, a division bench of the Manipur High Court had agreed to hear an appeal filed against the controversial order.
The appeal was moved by the All Manipur Tribal Union and various groups which argued that groups associated with the rights of the tribal community were not a party to the writ petition in which the 2023 direction was passed.
The original petitioners - in whose case the direction was passed by Justice Murlidaran, filed a review plea before the High Court, in which the Meitei petitioners submitted that an “innocuous” direction in the March 2023 order may have to be modified considering the delicate nature of the issue.
The review petitioners still sought for the State to consider the inclusion of Meiteis in the ST list, but added that it was completely up to the wisdom of the State to take a call on the issue.
On Wednesday, Justice Golmei Gaiphulshillu of the High Court said that the paragraph in the order needs to be reviewed.
“I am satisfied and of the view that the direction given at Paragraph No. 17 (iii) of the Hon’ble Single Judge dated March 27, 2023 needs to be reviewed, as the direction is against the observation made in the Constitution Bench of the Hon’ble Supreme Court,” the court noted.
However, the directive given by Justice Murlidharan on March 27 in Paragraph 17 (ii) which stated ‘The first respondent is directed to submit the recommendation in reply to the letter dated May 29, 2013 of the Ministry of Tribal Affairs, Government of India’ still stands.
