Bombay HC: Gowaris can’t be denied benefits of STs

Mumbai: In a significant development, the Nagpur bench of the Bombay high court has observed that ‘people of the Gowari community in Maharashtra cannot be denied the benefits of scheduled tribes (ST) merely because they are not shown on the list of special backward classes’. The Gowaris have been struggling for the past three decades to be included in the ST category to avail themselves of the benefits of reservations in government jobs and education, and a stampede during the community’s protest over the issue near the Maharashtra Assembly at Nagpur on November 23, 1994, had claimed over 100 lives.

The incident was one of the turning points in state politics and led to a change in the government a couple of years later. The government had appointed a one-man committee under Justice Justice S.S. Dani to probe the incident, and it gave a clean chit to the police.

A division bench of Nagpur presided by Justice R.K. Deshpande and Justice Arun Upadhyay on Tuesday held that the Gowari community in Maha-rashtra should get benefits under the ST category.

“The people belonging to the Gowari community in Maharashtra cannot be denied the benefits of Scheduled Tribes, merely because the Gowari community is shown in the list of Special Backward Class in relation to the state of Maharashtra in the GR (government resolution) dated 13-06-1995 and as OBC category in the Gazette notification dated 16-06-2011,” bench said. The court also noted that post-Independence, there was no such sub-tribe as “Gond-Gowari”.

Adim Gowari Samaj Vikas Mandal and some others had moved the Nagpur bench of the high court, seeking the ST status.

According to petitioners, the state government had classified the community under the heading “Gond-Gowari” earlier and put it in the Special Backward Class (SBC) category. The community had objected to this, saying they were merely Gowari and not “Gond-Gowari”, a sub-group of the Gond tribe. The petitioners’ lawyers Narayan Phadnis and Ram Parsodkar argued that classification made by the government was wrong. The high court, after scrutinising old records, upheld the contention.