Under which Article of the Indian Constitution does the President issue a public notification for the Scheduled Tribes for a specific state?

Question

UnlockIAS · Accepted Answer

Correct — C, Article 342. Under Article 342(1) the President may, by public notification, specify the tribes or tribal communities — or parts of or groups within them — which shall be deemed to be Scheduled Tribes in relation to a State or Union Territory; where a State is concerned, the notification is issued after consultation with the Governor of that State. Article 342(2) then locks the list: once the first notification is issued, any community can be included in or excluded from it only by Parliament by law, not by another Presidential notification. Article 342 is the ST twin of Article 341, which does the same job for the Scheduled Castes.

Why the other options are wrong — (a) Article 340 empowers the President to appoint a Commission to investigate the conditions of socially and educationally backward classes — the provision under which the Kaka Kalelkar and Mandal Commissions were set up. It concerns backward classes, not the notification of Scheduled Tribes.  (b) Article 349 lays down a special procedure for the enactment of certain laws relating to language. It belongs to the Official Language part of the Constitution and has nothing to do with Scheduled Tribes.  (d) Article 338 provides for the National Commission for Scheduled Castes (the National Commission for Scheduled Tribes is separately provided under Article 338A, inserted by the 89th Amendment Act, 2003). These create watchdog commissions — they do not decide who is notified as a Scheduled Tribe.

Concept: The Constitution nowhere defines which communities are tribal. Article 366(25) simply says that 'Scheduled Tribes' means those tribes or tribal communities deemed to be Scheduled Tribes under Article 342 — that is, the Constitution supplies the machinery, not the list. The machinery has two stages: a first Presidential notification for each State/UT (in consultation with the Governor for a State), and thereafter amendment of that list only by an Act of Parliament. Because every notification is made 'in relation to' a particular State or Union Territory, ST status is State-specific — a community scheduled in one State is not automatically an ST in another.

State PCS 2025 Q23 — Indian Polity PYQ with Answer

State PCS 2025 Q23 — Indian Polity PYQ with Answer