BPSC 70th CCE Prelims General Studies · Question 96 of 143

Correct — A, Tanti-Tantwa. The Bihar government's resolution of 1 July 2015 directed that the Tanti-Tantwa community, until then classed among the state's Extremely Backward Classes, be treated as merged into the existing Scheduled Caste entry 'Pan/Sawasi/Panr', which in practice moved the community from the EBC quota to the SC quota in state jobs and admissions. On 15 July 2024, in Dr. Bhim Rao Ambedkar Vichar Manch Bihar v. State of Bihar, the Supreme Court set that resolution aside. Its reasoning is a straight reading of Article 341: the President alone specifies, by public notification, the castes deemed to be Scheduled Castes in relation to a State, and once such a notification is issued only Parliament may vary it by law. A State government has no role in the process beyond being consulted before the original notification, and it certainly cannot achieve an addition indirectly by declaring one community to be the same as another already on the list. The Court described what Bihar had done as a manipulation of the list rather than an interpretation of it. It also dealt with the consequences: persons appointed to Scheduled Caste posts on the strength of the 2015 resolution were not to be thrown out but to be adjusted against the Extremely Backward Class category to which they properly belonged, and the state was directed not to issue Scheduled Caste certificates to Tanti-Tantwa applicants. This was the single most-reported Bihar constitutional-law story of 2024, which is why it appears in the paper five months later.

• (b)Lal Begi — A caste name that appears in Scheduled Caste lists in northern India, and therefore a convincing decoy in a question whose whole surface is unfamiliar caste names. It was not the subject of the 2015 Bihar resolution and not before the Supreme Court in July 2024.
• (c)Dabgar — Another genuine caste name from the backward-class and Scheduled Caste lists of Indian states, offered here purely for plausibility. No 2015 Bihar notification reclassified it and no 2024 judgment concerned it.
• (d)Pano — The most cunning of the three, because it echoes 'Pan/Sawasi/Panr' — the Scheduled Caste entry into which Bihar tried to merge Tanti-Tantwa. A candidate who half-remembers the case remembers that a 'Pan'-sounding entry was involved, and picks the community that was the destination rather than the one that was moved.

Article 341(1) empowers the President, by public notification and after consultation with the Governor in the case of a State, to specify the castes, races or tribes that shall be deemed to be Scheduled Castes in relation to that State. Article 341(2) then locks the list: Parliament may by law include or exclude a caste, but the notification issued under clause (1) 'shall not be varied by any subsequent notification'. Article 342 does the same for Scheduled Tribes. The design is deliberate — the list carries reservations in legislatures, services and education, so a single national authority controls entry and exit and no state government can enlarge its own quota pool by executive order. The Supreme Court has enforced this repeatedly, most influentially in State of Maharashtra v. Milind (2001), which held that no authority may add to, subtract from or read entries into the Presidential list, and that courts cannot conduct an enquiry into whether one community is 'really' the same as a listed one.

The question is answerable without any caste-list knowledge if you have followed Bihar current affairs, because only one of the four names carries a 2024 Supreme Court story. The trap is that all four look equally obscure to an outsider, so a candidate who has not read the news has no discriminating fact and can only guess. The reason to remember this one is that it sits at the junction of two syllabus areas BPSC likes — Bihar administration and constitutional law — and the constitutional principle is more examinable than the community name. Note also what the ruling did not say. It did not deny that Tanti-Tantwa is a backward community; it held only that Bihar could not decide the question for itself. And it should not be confused with the separate constitutional development three weeks later, when a seven-judge bench in State of Punjab v. Davinder Singh (1 August 2024) held by 6:1 that states MAY sub-classify within the Scheduled Castes for the purpose of distributing reservation benefits, overruling E. V. Chinnaiah (2004). Sub-dividing a quota among castes already on the list is permitted; putting a new caste onto the list is not.

• Bihar's resolution of 1 July 2015 treated Tanti-Tantwa, an Extremely Backward Class, as merged into the Scheduled Caste entry 'Pan/Sawasi/Panr'
• The Supreme Court quashed it on 15 July 2024 in Dr. Bhim Rao Ambedkar Vichar Manch Bihar v. State of Bihar
• Article 341(1): the President specifies Scheduled Castes for a State by public notification, after consulting the Governor; Article 341(2): only Parliament may add to or remove from that list
• The Court directed that persons already appointed under the Scheduled Caste quota on the basis of the 2015 resolution be adjusted against the Extremely Backward Class category instead
• State of Maharashtra v. Milind (2001) is the leading precedent that no authority may modify or reinterpret an entry in the Presidential list
• Three weeks later, State of Punjab v. Davinder Singh (1 August 2024, seven judges, 6:1) allowed states to sub-classify within the Scheduled Castes for reservation — a different question from altering the list itself

• Assuming a State can add a caste to the Scheduled Caste list if the Governor or the State Assembly approves — only Parliament can, by law
• Confusing the July 2024 Tanti-Tantwa ruling with the August 2024 Davinder Singh ruling on sub-classification, which went the other way on a different question
• Picking 'Pano' because the case involved a 'Pan' entry: that entry was the destination of the merger, not the community that was moved

BPSC folds the constitutional rule into a Bihar news event and then asks for the community's name, so the answer is a proper noun even though the teachable content is Article 341. UPSC would keep the principle and drop the name — a statement-based question on who may amend the Scheduled Caste list, or on the constitutional status of the Commissions under Articles 338 and 338B.

No directly related past PYQ was found.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Under the Constitution of India, a caste once specified in the Presidential notification of Scheduled Castes for a State can be excluded from that list by

  • (a)the State Legislature by resolution
  • (b)the Governor of the State by notification
  • (c)Parliament by law
  • (d)the National Commission for Scheduled Castes

  Answer(c) Parliament by law — Article 341(2) provides that Parliament may include or exclude castes from the list, and that the original notification shall not be varied by any subsequent notification.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  In the Bihar case decided by the Supreme Court in July 2024, the Tanti-Tantwa community was, before the 2015 State resolution, classified under which category ?

  • (a)Scheduled Tribe
  • (b)Extremely Backward Class
  • (c)Economically Weaker Section
  • (d)Denotified Tribe

  Answer(b) Extremely Backward Class — the 2015 resolution attempted to move the community from the EBC list into the Scheduled Caste entry 'Pan/Sawasi/Panr', and the Court ordered those appointed under the SC quota to be adjusted back against EBC.