The two national commissions, one for the scheduled castes and the other for the scheduled tribes, will now have a say in all major policy decisions that can have an impact on SCs and STs.

The union cabinet secretariat issued an order [attached below] on February 16 reminding all central ministries and departments to the constitutional requirement of consulting the two constitutional bodies that is often overlooked.

Article 338(9) and 338A(9) specifically mandates that "the union and every state commission shall consult the commissions on all major policy matters affecting affecting SCs/STs." A separate directive is going out to all state governments to get vetted all their proposals impacting SCs and STs vetted by the two central commissions before taking any decision.

The directive to the central ministries and departments makes it mandatory for them to consult the two commissions through the administrative ministry before finalising notes for consideration by the cabinet or any cabinet committee.

The procedure laid down in the directive envisages that the administrative ministry to forward the national commission's views to the sponsoring ministry with own comments after showing them to the in-charge minister.

Further, the note for consideration of the Cabinet or Cabinet committees has to include the unabridged/unedited views of the concerned commission, along with views of the administrative ministry and responses to them by the sponsoring ministry.

The directive issued by Cabinet director K L Sharma says the handbook on writing Cabinet notes as also the consolidated instructions on preparing notes for the Cabinet or Cabinet committees stand modified to this extent for mandatory consultation of the two national commissions.