E-Paper
Himachal HC stays notification granting ST status to Hattee community
Hearing pleas challenging the Scheduled Tribe status for the Hatti community filed by the Gigiripar Anusuchit Jaati Adhikar Sanrakshan Samiti and the Gujjar Kalyan Parishad, a division bench of chief justice MS Ramachandra Rao and justice Jyotsna Rewal Dua said prima facie, there appears to be “manifest arbitrariness and glaring unconstitutionality in the impugned law”
Barely three days after the state government issued a notification granting tribal status to the Hattee community, the Himachal Pradesh high court on Thursday issued an interim order staying the notification.
Hearing pleas challenging the Scheduled Tribe status for the Hatti community filed by the Gigiripar Anusuchit Jaati Adhikar Sanrakshan Samiti and the Gujjar Kalyan Parishad, a division bench of chief justice MS Ramachandra Rao and justice Jyotsna Rewal Dua said prima facie, there appears to be “manifest arbitrariness and glaring unconstitutionality in the impugned law”.
The Himachal government had on Monday issued a notification granting Scheduled Tribes status to the Hattee community of Sirmaur district’s Transgiri area.
Members of the community had been demonstrating against the state government over not implementing the Constitution (Scheduled Tribes) Order (Second Amendment) Act, 2023, and notifying the community as Scheduled Tribes.
The bench said there exists a balance of convenience in favour of the petitioners and irreparable injury is likely to be caused if the interim relief is not granted. The court then stayed the notification till March 18.
However, the high court clarified that the observations or findings recorded are only prima facie and tentative, and shall not have any bearing during the final hearing.
While making the announcement about the notification on Monday, chief minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu had said that he would hold a rally in Nahan district of Sirmaur.
The division bench also asserted that the Centre had already rejected this demand thrice, in 1995, 2006 and 2017 . While rejecting the proposals to grant ST status to Hattee community, the Centre had said that the lack of uniformity in the population of the area and Hattee being a broad term covering all the residents and not a specific group were among the main reasons.
The petition alleged that the said area was declared a tribal area without a population survey and there was no Hattee tribe in the state. The petition claimed that if Hattee get ST status, many from “upper castes” would also enjoy the benefits.
It was also contended that of the four assembly constituencies of the Transgiri region, two are reserved for Scheduled Castes on grounds of the community’s existence in the area.The court noted the contention that under Article 332 of the Constitution, these two reserved seats would now be eliminated and added that these concerns of the Scheduled Caste community cannot be ignored.
