The main legal point established in the judgment is the exclusive authority of the President and Parliament in identifying and varying the list of Scheduled Castes, as well as the limitations on state government's power to alter such identifications.

J. Chelameswar, C.J.

1. W.A.No.1405 of 2008 and W.P.(C) No.34618 of 2006 came to be placed before this Full Bench pursuant to an order of reference dated 28.01.2010.

2. Three communities, Mannan, Perumannan and Vannan, in the State of Kerala are recognised by an order of the President issued pursuant to the power entrusted to the President under Article 341 of the Constitution of India to be the 'Scheduled Caste' in relation to the State of Kerala. There is another community known as "Peruvannan" in the State of Kerala. The members of the said community claim that the name "Peruvannan" is a synonym of the name "Vannan", a community which is already recognised as Scheduled Caste.

3. The first appellant in W.A.No.1405 of 2008, one K.Padmanabhan, produced a certificate as Ext.P2 in the writ petition, issued by the Head Master of Government School, Mangada, Pallipuram, Malappuram District dated 14.02.2008 which purports to certify that the abovementioned Padmanabhan belongs to a caste known as "Vannan". However, another certificate dated 24.03.1962 issued by the head of the Higher Secondary School, Tirur showing the caste of the abovementioned Padmanabhan as "Peruvannan".

4. The question whether Peruvannan and Vannan are synonym has been troubling the State of Kerala for quite some time. The Government of Kerala issued an order, G.O. No.1090 dated 13.09.1958 (Ext.P1) by the Labour and Local Administration Department (Harijan Welfare B). The relevant portion of it reads as follows:

"For the purpose of educational concessions the communities known as Mannan, Pathiyan and Vannan are treated at present as Scheduled Castes throughout the State except in the erstwhile Malabar area. The Director of Harijan Welfare has reported that the Social Educational and Economic Conditions as well as the traditional occupations of the communities and also the Varnavar community are identical to those of the Peruvannan community which is treated as Scheduled Caste throughout the State. He has therefore recommended that all the four communities mentioned above may be bracketed with Peruvannans. So the Government are pleased to order that the above mentioned communities are bracketed with Peruvannan. However, in the meantime Government are pleased to extend to the four communities mentioned above throughout the State all the Educational and other concessions granted to Scheduled Castes by the Harijan Welfare Department."

In other words, by the said order the State of Kerala wanted to treat the community Peruvannan also as a Scheduled Caste through out the State of Kerala, an exercise which is not permissible under the scheme of the Constitution, having regard to the language of Article 341 which mandates that the identification of Scheduled Caste to be done by the President at the first instance by a public notification and any change subsequent to the said initial identification can be made either by way of an addition to or exclusion from the list only by the Parliament. The fact that such an identification made by the President cannot be altered by any other body or organ of the State except the Parliament is repeatedly held by the Supreme Court in a number of decisions [see State of Maharashtra v. Milind (2001) 1 SCC 4 and E.V.Chinnayya v. State of A.P. (2005) 1 SCC 394].

5. However, it is the averment of the appellants that in view of the abovementioned Government Order (G.O.No.1090) large number of cases of the people belonging to Peruvannan community were treated as people belonging to Scheduled Caste eversince the abovementioned Government Order in the State of Kerala.

6. The State of Kerala made an enactment known as "The Kerala (Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes) Regulation of Issue of Community Certificates Act, 1996(for short Act 11 of 1996)". Section 3 of the said Act postulates that any person claiming the benefit of any reservation, protection, concession or exemption granted by law in favour of persons belonging to Sche