A recent verdict of the Supreme Court led to a lot of criticism from political parties and others who argued that it amounts to dilution of the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989. A two judge bench of the Supreme Court laid down new guidelines for police officers on how to ensure innocent persons, especially public officials, are protected from false complaints.
- Angered over the alleged dilution of the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, Dalit groups carried out protests across several states on April 2. The protests turned violent and nine people died across the country.
- A week after the April 2 Bharat Bandh, in what is seen as a counter movement, some groups on Tuesday observed Bharat Bandh to protest against the caste based reservation in education and employment.
- On the basis of the 1931 census that the British government had conducted, the Government of India 1935 Act was promulgated. The reservation for the “Depressed Classes” was incorporated into the act, which came into force in 1937. This “Depressed class” later came to known as the Scheduled Caste.
- Scheduled Tribe were the ‘tribes or communities’ who were isolated from the rest of the communities and wouldn’t abide to any religion. The British government in 1935 identified 'Schedule of Tribes' which consisted of different types of indigenous tribal groups i.e. Denotified tribes, criminal tribes, forest dwellers etc.
- By 1937 both the section were given positive affirmative action rights and political representation. After India got its independence, the Constitution continued the affirmative action for the ‘depressed class’ which were now termed as 'Scheduled Caste' and 'Scheduled Tribe'.
- According to the Constitution of India, under article 341(1), the President of India, after consultation with the Governor, may specify, “the castes, races, tribes or parts of groups within castes or races, which shall be deemed to be Scheduled Castes”.
- Accordingly, the President has notified the Scheduled Castes in the order called ‘Constitution (Scheduled Castes) Order-1950’ and the ‘Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes List (Modification) Order-1956. However, under article 341(2), the Parliament of India by law can include or exclude the above-mentioned groups from the list of the Scheduled Castes.
- The order was called as the Constitution (Scheduled Castes) Order, 1950. The complete list of castes and tribes was made on order of 1950 which had certain norms and criteria for inclusion of other community later. However the Scheduled tribe list was put in updation due to partition as it was very difficult to identify tribals as they were geographically isolated. Thus, the list of Scheduled tribe was completely updated by 1958 with 744 enlisted tribes.
- Part 3 of the Presidential order of 1950 states that “no person who professes a religion different from the Hindu [the Sikh or the Buddhist] religion shall be deemed to be a member of a Scheduled Caste.”
- This clearly lays down a religious barrier which states that any person who is not a Hindu, Buddhist or a Sikh, will not be entitled to reservation on the basis of being a Scheduled Caste.
- This is also the reason why most Dalits who convert to another religion, take up Buddhism as opposed to any other religion, so as not to leave the fold of reservations.
- The First Backward Classes Commission was set up by a presidential order on 29 January 1953 under the chairmanship of Kaka Kalelkar. The commission submitted its report in 1955. It had prepared a list of around 2400 backward castes for the entire country and of which 837 had been classified as the 'most backward'. The commission also put some recommendations like reserving 70% of reservations for OBC in education.
conclusion:The second backward class commission was established on 1 January 1979, B.P Mandal as its chairperson. The commission submitted its report in December 1980 which included both Hindus and non-Hindus, and consisted around 52% of the total population. The Mandal Commission recommended 27% of reservation as the SC had set bar for reservation to not extend 50% in any case.
