The Manipur High Court made a big development on Wednesday when it removed a paragraph from its March 27, 2023 judgement. In that order, the high court suggested that the state government take into consideration adding the majority Meitei population to the Scheduled Tribe (ST) list.
The tribal Kukis opposed the idea of adding Meiteis to the ST list, and the high court’s ruling is thought to have been the catalyst for the ethnic violence that started in May and has resulted in hundreds of fatalities.
The judgment’s paragraph 17(iii) has been removed. According to the petitioners, the first respondent had to quickly look into their case for adding the Meetei/Meitei community to the Scheduled Tribe list, preferably within four weeks of receiving a copy of this order. This was in line with what was said in the writ petition and the order passed in W.P.(C) No. 4281 of 2002 on May 26, 2003, by the Gauhati High Court.
Why was the paragraph cut off?
The petitioners “failed to assist the court properly at the time of hearing of the said writ petition due to this misconception of fact and law,” the bench of Justice Golmei Gaiphulshillu noted in passing the order on Wednesday. They claimed that the aforementioned paragraph in the original judgement was passed in a “misconception of the law.”
The March 2023 order, according to Justice Gaiphulshillu, is “contrary” to the ruling of the Supreme Court in the State of Maharashtra vs. Milind & Ors case, wherein the high court declared that lower courts are not permitted to “modify, amend, or alter the ST list.”
The Manipur High Court panel of one judge decided, “Therefore, the direction given in Paragraph No. 17(iii) needs to be deleted and is ordered accordingly for deletion.”