SHILLONG, MAY 3: The State government has revoked an “illegal” order passed at the level of an under secretary in-charge social welfare department by claiming that issuance of Scheduled Tribe (ST) certificate to the applicant adopting surnames of either from the father or mother or practice of adopting husband surnames by non-Khasi wife was also allowed.

The decision on striking down the impugned order passed on July 21, 2020 was announced by the Minister in-charge Social Welfare Paul Lyngdoh on Friday.

Speaking to reporters, Lyngdoh informed that on February 28, this year he had convened a meeting with the Executive Member and officials of the Khasi Hills Autonomous District Council (KHADC) and representatives of the Hynniewtrep Youth Council (HYC) with regards to an order issued at the level of the under secretary incharge social welfare department to the Deputy Commissioners of East Khasi Hills and West Khasi Hills in 2020.

The letter reads: “that the lineage Act, 1997 does not prohibit the issuance of ST certificates to the applicant adopting surnames of either from the father or mother and the practice of adopting husband surnames by non Khasi wife was also allowed”.

According to Lyngdoh, no officer of the government has the right to issue any order that contradicts an Act passed by the KHADC.

“In the course of discussions, first and foremost it became very apparent that since an Act pertaining to Lineage has already been considered and passed in the form of a Bill by the KHADC and also the same Bill had received the assent of the Governor of Meghalaya, therefore, it has a full power of an Act. When the Governor signed it also means that it has gone through the due process of examination by the DCA department and then received its assent and therefore even formally as well as a constitutionally, no officer of the government of Meghalaya could have had the right to issue any order that contradicts a Bill that has become an Act and which was already in existence at the time when this administrative order was issued. So we found that order to be impugned that is questionable and therefore, the meeting decided to recommend that this order be withdrawn,” he said.

He said that there were also guidelines issued for the issuance of the SC/ST certificate vide the Office Memorandum (OM) dated March 19, 2014 to the Deputy Commissioners of the East Khasi Hills and West Khasi Hills Districts.

“In fact, this went across the state but what was missing from this particular order was that this order did not take note of the fact that there is already a tribe certificate issued by the KHADC. In this case, the Khasi tribe certificate which is compulsory for anybody before he or she applies for an ST certificate, to first avail of and obtain a Khasi tribe certificate issued by the KHADC,” Lyngdoh said.

“(Accordingly) it was also decided that the OM be suitably amended by incorporating “Tribe certificate from Competent Authority for areas under KHADC jurisdiction” as one of the criteria in the Guidelines,” the minister said while informing that he had signed and approved the file in regards to this decision today.

Asked if any action will be taken against the particular officer for issuing an illegal order, Lyngdoh however said, “As of now, what we have done is to reinterpret things as they should have been interpreted and our focus was more on correcting an executive order that was issued which would not have stood either legislative or judicial scrutiny.”

According to him, ST certificates issued as per the illegal order will be considered null and void.

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