Mumbai, July 8 -- A missing punctuation mark in a corrigendum issued by the union law ministry in 1977 has prompted members of Maharashtra's indigenous Koli community to approach the Bombay High Court. The corrigendum dated February 3, 1977 substituted the entry "Koli, Dhor" with "Koli Dhor" at serial number 28 in the list of Scheduled Tribes (ST) of Maharashtra; this executive action "effectively merged two distinct tribes" (Koli and Dhor) and resulted in the systematic deprivation of the Kolis' statutory recognition and constitutional entitlements, the Solapur-based Adivasi Koli Jamat Samajik Sanstha (AKJSS) said in a public interest litigation (PIL) filed in the High Court. The AKJSS stated that deliberate use of the punctuation mark, a comma, between the two tribes - Koli and Dhor - "unambiguously established their distinct and independent legal identities" in the ST list for Maharashtra, as enumerated in the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes Orders (Amendment) Act, 1976 and assented to by the President on September 18, 1976. However, the PIL stated that in the 1977 corrigendum under challenge, the law ministry "illegally altered the Scheduled Tribes list for Maharashtra by substituting 'Koli, Dhor' with 'Koli Dhor' by removal of the comma in between two words", thus "extinguishing the 'Koli' community's distinct existence, identity and substantially altering their legal status". While the PIL urged the court to strike down the 1977 corrigendum, it stated that there was no delay in filing the petition. "Since this is a constitutional issue, there can't be a delay in challenging it. There wasn't much awareness about this in the community as most members come from disadvantaged backgrounds. I have been studying this issue since 2019 and it is only after that that we have moved the High Court," said AKJSS president Renukacharya Khanapure, a chemistry professor. Khanapure estimates that caste validity certificates may have been denied to a few lakh Kolis due to the missing comma. According to the PIL, the corrigendum was issued without following due process under the Constitution of India as it was neither enacted by Parliament nor approved by the President. It was also issued without mandatory ethnographic study and consultation with the National Commission for Scheduled Tribes (NCST) and the Registrar General of India, the PIL stated. AKJSS stated that when information about the processes followed before effecting the corrigendum was sought under the Right to Information Act, the ministry of tribal welfare informed them that "the file records requested are very old and not available with the CPIO". This lack of documentation, they argued, confirmed that the legislative process was not followed for issuing the corrigendum. The PIL, filed in 2025, was recently transferred from the High Court's circuit bench in Kolhapur to its principal bench in Mumbai....