Once a tribe became "notified" as criminal, all its members were required to register with the local magistrate, failing which they would be charged with a crime under the Indian Penal Code.
The Criminal Tribes Act was repealed in 1949 and thus 'de-notified' the tribal communities.
[3] This Act, however, was replaced by a series of Habitual Offenders Acts, that asked police to investigate a suspect's "criminal tendencies" and whether their occupation is "conducive to settled way of life."
The first census was in 1871 and at that time there was no consensus nor any definition of what constitutes a "tribe".
The UN's anti-discrimination body Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) asked India to repeal the Habitual Offenders Act (1952) and effectively rehabilitate the denotified and nomadic tribes on 9 March 2007.