Previous Year Question

As a general rule, Article 243D of the Constitution provides for reservation of seats for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in every Panchayat. The proportion of reserved seats is, as nearly as possible, linked to the proportion of the SC/ST population in the concerned Panchayat area.

However, a special constitutional exception regarding reservation for Scheduled Castes has been made for Arunachal Pradesh. Article 243M(3A) provides that the provision of Article 243D relating to reservation of seats for Scheduled Castes shall not apply to the State of Arunachal Pradesh.

An important reason for this special arrangement was that there was no Scheduled Caste population in Arunachal Pradesh, while the State was predominantly inhabited by indigenous tribal communities. Therefore, reservation for Scheduled Castes in Panchayats did not have the same demographic or social basis there.

This exception was inserted by the Constitution (Eighty-third Amendment) Act, 2000, which introduced clause (3A) in Article 243M.

An important caution is that this exemption specifically concerns reservation for Scheduled Castes in Panchayats. It does not mean that the entire Part IX of the Constitution is inapplicable to Arunachal Pradesh, nor does it mean that every form of reservation in Panchayati Raj is excluded there.