Goa to move Supreme Court against HC order stalling ST seat reservation process

Panaji, Seeking to clear the way for political reservation for Scheduled Tribes ahead of the 2027 assembly polls, the Goa government is set to move the Supreme Court this week, challenging a Bombay High Court order that stalled the identification of tribal population figures, officials said on Tuesday.

The Panaji bench of the High Court had last week restrained the Census Commissioner from notifying ST population estimates, observing that such figures could not be determined on any basis other than the first official Census conducted after 2026.

Talking to PTI, Goa NRI Commissioner Narendra Sawaikar, who was part of a state delegation that visited New Delhi, said the government would seek a vacation of the stay and file a Special Leave Petition before the Supreme Court by Wednesday.

A delegation of Goa leaders - including Assembly Speaker Ganesh Gaonkar, Art and Culture Minister Ramesh Tawadkar, and Sawaikar - rushed to the national capital on Monday to explore legal remedies after the HC's order threatened to stall the process of reserving assembly seats.

A division bench comprising Justices Valmiki Menezes and Amit S Jamsandekar had ordered the interim stay while hearing a petition challenging the constitutional validity of the Readjustment of Representation of Scheduled Tribes in Assembly Constituencies of the State of Goa Act, 2025.

The legislation, enacted by Parliament in August 2025 and brought into force in August 2026, provides for the determination of the ST population in Goa and the readjustment of assembly constituencies to enable political reservation for the community.

The court questioned the Census Commissioner's decision to presume that the ST population constituted 9.9 per cent of Goa's total population based on the 2001 Census, despite acknowledging that available data did not permit an accurate assessment of the current population.

The bench also noted that the Kunbi, Gauda, and Velip communities were included in the ST list in January 2003, after the 2001 Census had recorded only 566 tribal individuals across Goa.

The High Court's interim order has created uncertainty over the proposed reservation of four assembly constituencies for the ST community ahead of the 2027 polls.

Political reservation for the ST community has been a long-pending demand in Goa, with tribal organisations and community leaders seeking adequate representation in the state legislature.

This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without modifications to text.