2 min readAgartalaSep 6, 2022 10:51 PM IST
The Arunachal Pradesh government Tuesday said it will cancel Scheduled Tribe (ST) certificates of children born to tribal women who married non-tribals. A committee, however, would screen each such case, it added.
The announcement came during the ongoing session of the state Assembly, when Arunachal Pradesh Minister for Social Justice, Empowerment and Tribal Affairs Alo Libang replied to a question moved by Congress MLA Lombo Tayeng. The minister said the state government notified guidelines for issuing Arunachal Pradesh ST certificate on August 1 this year.
The minister said an ST certificate could be cancelled, revoked or impounded in case the authorities concerned satisfactorily concludes that the certificate was obtained through false submission of facts to the government, by suppression of relevant information or through misrepresentation.
In his reply to the House, Libang said nine disputed cases pertaining to ST certificates were placed in front of the scrutiny committee. Among these, five cases have already been disposed of and the rest are undergoing hearing.
One of the four remaining cases pertains to a tribal woman who married a non-tribal.
Earlier in 2018, the Khasi Hills Autonomous District Council of Meghalaya, which runs the administration in the state’s Khasi hills as per the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution, passed a legislation taking away the ST status and relevant constitutional benefits of Khasi women marrying non-Khasi individuals.
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Cases of false caste certificates came to light in Tripura in 2012 as well, after an inquiry found that former MLA Partha Das had used a fake Scheduled Caste (SC) certificate while contesting the 2008 Assembly elections.
The ex-MLA challenged the inquiry report in the High Court but a division bench quashed his petition and upheld the state-level scrutiny committee’s findings.
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