Part-I Assam 1. The North Cachar Hills District; 2. The Karbi-Anglong District; and 3. The
Bodo Land Territorial Area Districts; Part II Meghalaya 1. Khasi Hills District; 2. Jaintia Hills
District; and 3. The Garo Hills District; Part II Tripura; Tripura Tribal Areas District; and Part III
Mizoram 1. The Chakma District 2. The Mara District; and 3. The Lai District
The district or regional councils are empowered to make rules with the approval of the
Governor with regard to matters like establishment, construction or management of primary
schools, dispensaries, markets, cattle ponds, ferries, fisheries, roads, road transport and
waterways in the district. The Autonomous Councils of the North Cachar Hills and Karbi
Anglong have been granted additional powers to make laws with respect to other matters like
secondary education, agriculture, social security and social insurance, public health and
sanitation, minor irrigation, etc., The councils have also been conferred powers under the Civil
Procedure Code and Criminal Procedure Code for trial of certain suits and offences, as also the
powers of a revenue authority for their area for collection of revenue and taxes and other powers
for the regulation and management of natural resources.
Procedure for Declaration as ST
The term scheduled tribes is defined in the Constitution of India under Article 366(25) as
such tribes or tribal communities or parts of groups within such tribes or tribal communities as
are deemed under Article 342 to be scheduled tribes. Article 342 prescribes the procedure to be
followed in the matter of specification of scheduled tribes. In terms of Article 342(1), the
President may, with respect to any state or union territory, and where it is a state, after
consultation with the Governor thereof, notify tribes or tribal communities or parts thereof as
scheduled tribes. This confers on the tribe or part of it a constitutional status invoking the
safeguards provided for in the Constitution, to these communities, in their respective states/UTs.
Thus, in terms of Article 342(1), only those communities who have been declared as such by the
President through an initial public notification will be considered as scheduled tribes. Any
further amendment in the list is to be done through an Act of Parliament (Article 342(2)).
Parliament may, by law, include in or exclude from the list of scheduled tribes, any tribe or tribal
community or parts thereof. The list of scheduled tribes is state-specific. In other words, a
community declared as scheduled tribe in one state need not be so in another.
Scheduling and De-Scheduling of Tribes
Thus, the first specification of scheduled tribes in relation to a particular state/ union
territory is by a notified order of the President, after consultation with the state governments
concerned. The criteria generally adopted for specification of a community as a scheduled tribe
are: (a) indications of primitive traits; (b)distinctive culture; (c) shyness of contact with the
community at large; and (d) geographical isolation i.e., backwardness. These are not spelt out in
the Constitution but have become well established. They take into account the definitions in the
1931 Census, the reports of the first Backward Classes Commission (Kalelkar Committee), 1955,
the Advisory Committee on Revision of SC/ ST lists (Lokur Committee), 1965 and the Joint
Committee of Parliament on the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes Orders (Amendment)
Bill, 1967 (Chanda Committee), 1969. There are over 700 tribes (with many of them overlapping
in more than one state) as notified under Article 342 of the Constitution of India, spread over
different states and union territories of the country. It is worth noting that no community has
been specified as a scheduled tribe in relation to the states of Haryana and Punjab and the union
territories of Chandigarh, Delhi and Puducherry.