Read Time: 04 minutes

The Supreme Court Bench comprising CJI SA Bobde, Justice AS Bopanna & Justice V Ramasubramanian today adjourned the plea by members of the "Limboo" and "Tamang" Scheduled Tribes of Sikkim seeking proportional representation of the tribes in the Legislative Assembly for 2 weeks.

“Two weeks time issued”, CJI said. 

The Bench was hearing a petition filed by members of “Sikkim Tamang Tribal Joint Committee” filed through Adv Astha Sharma praying for issuance of direction to the Centre to take appropriate steps for amending the provisions of Representation of People Act, 1950 to provide reservation to Scheduled Tribes “Limboo” & “Tamang” in Sikkim Legislative Assembly. The petitioners also prayed for directing the state of Sikkim to implement the steps taken by the Centre regarding the reservation to “Limboo” & “Tamang” in the Assembly. Further prayer was also made to direct the Delimitation Commission of India, to issue a final notification to give effect to the reservation to these two tribes on the basis of 2011 census data. 

The petitioners placed reliance on Article 332 of the Constitution of India which mandated reservation of seats for Scheduled Tribes in the Legislative Assembly to submit that the tribal communities of “Limboo” & “Tamang” were entitled to get it. 

The plea also highlighted the fact that tribal communities of “Bhutia” & “Lepcha” were given reservation in the state assembly & that the “Limboo” & “Tamang” tribes would be deprived of their constitutional right in case of non reservation. 

On April 1, 2020, the Bench comprising Hon’ble Chief Justice, Justice Deepak Gupta & Justice Sanjeev Khanna did not grant the interim relief prayed by the petitioners since the Election Notification for elections in the State of Sikkim which were held on 11.04.2019 was already published. 

On September 22, 2019, the Division Bench comprising Justice AK Sikri & Justice S Abdul Nazeer while issuing notice returnable within two weeks denied to allow the petitioner’s submission that there should be a stay against the Election Commission of India for issuing notification for the election, in the meantime.

Case Title: Yehang Subba And Anr. V. Delimitation Commission And Ors.| W.P.(C) No. 187/2019