NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court has asked the Gauhati HC to decide anew a writ petition filed by Mizoram Chakma Students Union (MCSU) challenging the validity of Mizoram (Selection of Candidates for Higher Technical Courses) Rules, 2016, by which the state had sub-classified Scheduled Tribe ST communities and provided 93% quota to Zo tribe while reducing Chakma tribe’s quota from 4% to 1% in 2021.

On June 21, the HC had dismissed MCSU’s plea on the ground that the issue relating to the government’s competence to sub-classify the ST community and provide different quotas within the prescribed quantum of quota had been referred by the SC to a seven-judge bench and that MCSU should await the SC’s verdict. With no certainty of a seven-judge bench being constituted for adjudication of the contentious issue, the Mizoram government through advocate Bansuri Swaraj stated before the SC that in the NEET-2023 examination, three Chakma students had made it to the merit list and all three would be given provisional admission. The MCSU said this would assuage the immediate cause of moving the SC.

However, the students’ body said the challenge to sub-classification should be adjudicated. A bench of Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud and Justices J B Pardiwala and Manoj Misra said Gauhati high court could decide MCSU’s petition on its own merit without referring to the earlier decision of the court and the later reference of the issue to a seven-judge bench.

On Tuesday, Mizoram chief minister Zoramthanga participated in a solidarity march in Aizawl to protest the attacks on Kuki-Zo tribal communities in Manipur, where ethnic clashes were triggered by a Manipur HC order directing the state government to respond to a 2013 communication from the Centre on the demand for grant of ST status to Meiteis in the state. Ethnic friction started on May 3 when Kukis took out a solidarity march against any move to grant ST status to Meiteis.