In WRIT PETITION NO.10569 OF 2010-BOM HC- Once tribe validity certificates of relatives from paternal side are placed on record, there is no reason to invalidate applicant’s caste claim: Bombay HC Justices Ravindra V. Ghuge & Anil L. Pansare [28-07-2022]

Read Order: Sunil S/o. Pratap Thakur v. The State of Maharashtra and Ors 

Tulip Kanth

Aurangabad, August 2, 2022:  The Aurangabad Bench of the Bombay High Court has come to the aid of a  Police Constable (Wireless Operator) by quashing his termination order with the observation that the Scheduled Tribe Certificate Scrutiny Committee should have allowed the petitioner’s caste claim when five validity certificates, issued in favor of the paternal blood relatives of the petitioner, were placed before the Committee.

The petitioner, who was working as a Police Constable (Wireless Operator), had approached the Division Bench of Justice Ravindra V. Ghuge and Justice Anil L. Pansare assailing the order of the Scheduled Tribe Certificate Scrutiny Committee, Nandurbar(respondent) invalidating the claim of the petitioner as belonging to Thakur Scheduled Tribe. Pending a petition, the department issued a termination order. The petitioner sought quashing of this termination order by a civil application.

The Bench noted that five validity certificates, issued in favour of the paternal blood relatives of the petitioner, were placed before the Committee, still it had ignored the same on the ground that each case had to be decided on its own merits and on the basis that the petitioner failed to make out a case in the affinity test. 

On perusal of the records, the Bench opined that the common ancestor of the petitioner and the five relatives is one late Shri Kamaji Thakur and in such circumstances, unless and until there is material to show that the tribe certificate was obtained by fraud, misrepresentation of facts or suppression of facts, the validity certificate granted to any relative from the paternal side would constitute conclusive proof for the social status of another member of the family, immediate or extended from the paternal side.

“However, the law is well settled on this count. Once, tribe validity certificates of the relatives from the paternal side are placed on record, there is no reason to invalidate the caste claim of the applicant,” said the Bench while noticing that it was nobody’s case that the petitioner was not a paternal relative of the five persons. The Bench added that it was not the case that these five relatives or any one of them had obtained the validity certificate by committing fraud or by misrepresentation or by suppression of facts. Thus, on these grounds, the High Court held that the Committee ought to have allowed the caste claim of the petitioner.

Allowing the petition and the civil application, the Bench set aside the impugned order passed by the Committee as well as the termination order. The Bench also directed the Respondent-Committee to issue a validity certificate to the petitioner as belonging to Thakur Scheduled Tribe, within a period of two weeks.