Judgment

RANGANATH MISRA, J.:- This appeal by special leave calls in question the judgment of the Guwahati High Court dated March 19, 1985 (reported in AIR 1987 Gauhati 24), dismissing the appellants writ petition. The appellant is a resident of Tripura State. In his application in a representative capacity before the High Court he maintained that he belonged to the Laskar community which had always been treated in the erstwhile State of Tripura as a scheduled tribe and on that basis in the State records was included in the Deshi Tripura community long before integration of the Rulers State of Tripura with the Union of India. Members of the Laskar community freely enjoyed all the benefits available to members of the scheduled tribes until in 1976 the State Government decided to treat members of that community as not belonging to the scheduled tribes and issued instructions to the State authorities to implement the Government decision. That led to the filing of the petition before the High Court. In the writ petition appellant prayed for appropriate directions to continue to treat the appellant and members of his community as belonging to the scheduled tribes and for a direction to the State Government to extend all the benefits admissibit to members of the scheduled tribes to members of - the Laskar community. Before the High Court the respondents disputed the claim and maintained that the Laskar community was never included in the Scheduled Tribes Order and as such there was no question of exclusion from the list. A historical study of the claim would show that in the past Tripura/ Tripuri/Tippera which have been included in the Presidential Notification never included the Laskar community. Tripuras were a Tibeto-Burman race akin to the Shah tribe and Tipperas were divided into four groups, namely (i) Puran or Original Tipperas (ii) Jamatias (iii) Noatias or Nutan Tripuras, and (iv) Riangs. Respondents relied upon Government records and official publications in support of the aforesaid stand.

2. Before the High Court two circulars.of the erstwhile State of Tripura, one being of December 1930, and the other of Februray, 1941,census report of the ex-State of Tripura were produced in support of the claim advanced by the appellant. Several authorities of this Court were relied upon for finding out the scope of enquiry in a claim of this type and ultimately by the impugned judgment the High Court dismissed the writ petition but on the basis of a statement made by the Advocate-General appearing for the State, it recorded :

"We keep on record the statement made by the learned Advocate-General, Tripura, on instruction that as a result of the impugned Memorandum No. 10887-19077/TW/6-4-(LD) dated 28-4-1979 the certificates already issued would be treated as infructuous prospectively and not retrospectively and those who have already enjoyed the benefits by virtue of such scheduled tribe certificates they shall not be deprived of the benefits they have already enjoyed and the Memorandum shall be effective from its date prospectively insofar as the future benefits are concerned."

3. This appeal had come up for final hearing earlier and by a brief judgment reported in (1987) 3 SCC 463, a two-Judge Bench recorded the following order (Para 2):

"The record before us shows that the people of the Laskar community have been treated as members of the scheduled tribes and there have been some letters from the Government of India to the State Government in support of that position, it is, however, a fact that there has been no clear inclusion of the community in an appropriate Presidential Order. The appellant has maintained that even in the absence of such a clear specification in a Presidential Order, as a sub-group under one of the notified categories, the appellants community has been enjoying the privileges. We have been told by the learned counsel for the Union of India that the representation made by the appellant and members of his community fo