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CIVIL APPELLATE JURISDICTION: Civil Appeal No. 479 of 1986.

From the Judgment and Order dated 18.3. 1985 of the Assam High Court in Civil Rule No. 139 of 1979. A.K. Ganguli, A. Mariarputham, A.D. Sikri and Dilip Tandon for the Appellant.

Kapil Sibal, Additional Solicitor General, Rajiv Dhawan, Gopal Singh, C.V.S. Rao, Adv. (NP) and R.B. Misra for the appearing respondents.

Hardev Singh and S. Ravindra Bhat for the intervenor. The Judgment of the Court was delivered by RANGANATH MISRA, J.This appeal by special leave calls in question the judgment of the Guwahati High Court dated March 18, 1985, dismissing the appellant's writ petition. The appellant is a resident of Tripura State. In his application in a representative capacity before the High court he main- tained that he belonged to the Laskar community which had always been treated in the erstwhile State of Tripura as a Scheduled Tribe and on that basis in the State records was included in the Deshi Tripura community long before integra- tion of the Ruler's State of Tripura with the Union of India. Members of the Laskar community freely enjoyed all the benefits available to members of the Schedule Tribes until in 1976 the State Government decided to treat members of that community as not belonging to the Scheduled Tribes and issued instructions to the State authorities to imple- ment the Government decision. That led to the filing of the petition before the High Court. In the writ petition appel- lant prayed for appropriate directions to continue to treat the appellant and members of his community as belonging to the Scheduled Tribes and for a direction to the State Gov- ernment to extend all the benefits admissible to members of the Scheduled Tribes to members of the Laskar community. Before the High Court the respondents disputed the claim and maintained that the Laskar community was never included in the Scheduled Tribes Order and as such there was no question of exclusion from the list. A historical study of the claim would show that in the past Tripura/Tripuri/Tippera which have been included in the Presidential Notification never included the Laskar community. Tripuras were. a TibetoDurman race akin to the Shan tribe and Tipperas were divided into four groups, namely, (i) Puran or original Tipperas; (ii) Jamatias; (iii) Noatias or Nutan Tripuras and (iv) Riangs. Respondents relied upon Government records and official publications in support of-the aforesaid stand.

Article 366(25) defines 'Scheduled Tribes' to mean such tribes or tribal communities or parts or groups within such tribal communities as are deemed under Art. 342 to be Sched- uled Tribes for the purposes of this Constitution. The Constitution (Scheduled Tribes) (Union Territories) Order, 1950 relating to Tripura included 19 tribes within the notification. Items 15, 16, 17 and 18 are relevant for our purpose and they were:

"15. Tripura or Tripuri, Tippera.

16. Jamatia

17. Noatia

'Jamatia, Noatia, Riang and Tripura/Tripuri/Tippera' apart from 15 other tribes as specified. It is not necessary to refer to the 15 others inasmuch as it is the case of the appellant that Laskars are a part of the tribe named as Tripura, Tripuri or Tippera covered by Entry 18. Before adverting to the evidence upon which the appel- lant relies in support of his stand, it is necessary that the scope of enquiry to be conducted in this regard by the Court may be determined. There are precedents of this Court which have to be first referred to. A Constitution Bench in the case of B. Basavalingappa v. D. Munichinnappa, [1965] 1 SCR 316 examined the provisions of Art. 341 which contained similar provisions for the scheduled castes with reference to an election dispute. Wanchoo, J. spoke for the Constitu- tion Bench thus:

These authorities clearly indicate, therefore, that the entries in the Presidential Order have to be taken as final and the scope of enquiry and admissibility of evidence is confined within the limitations indicated. It is, however, not open to the Court to make any addition or subtraction from the Presidential Order.

The evidence in this case on which reliance has been placed in support of the claim that Laskars are included in the tribe described as 'Tripura/Tripuri/Tippera' mainly consists of two circulars of the erstwhile State of Tripura. Circular No. 9 is of December, 1930. There is a narration therein to the following effect: