In a couple of writ petitions filed before the Bombay High Court against an order by the Scrutiny Committee, whereby the caste claim of the petitioner as belonging to ‘Thakar, Scheduled Tribe’ was invalidated, a Division Bench of Justice M.S. Karnik and Justice S.M. Modak quashed the impugned order and directed the Committee to grant a caste validity certificate to the petitioner within six weeks.
The State submitted that the documents of the petitioner’s father and grandfather, which were placed on record, indicated that they never projected their caste as ‘Thakar, Scheduled Tribe’.
The Court noted that the Scrutiny Committee had referred to an affidavit sworn by the petitioner’s paternal cousin, who had been granted a caste validity certificate. The petitioner challenged the impugned order on the ground that there could not be an inconsistency among the caste of blood relatives from the paternal side. It was contended that when a caste validity certificate had been granted to the petitioner’s paternal cousin, the Committee could not come to a different conclusion on the same set of facts.
The Court referred to the observations made by the Supreme Court in Maharashtra Adiwasi Thakur Jamat Swarakshan Samiti v. State of Maharashtra & Ors. (2023) 16 SCC 415 and stated that in the impugned order, the Committee did not contend that proper procedure had not been followed in granting the caste certificate to the petitioner’s paternal cousin, but it was only stated that each case had to be decided on its own merits.
Thus, the Court allowed the petition while quashing and setting aside the impugned order. The Court directed the Scrutiny Committee to issue a caste validity certificate in favour of the petitioner within six weeks.
Lastly, the Court clarified that if the Scrutiny Committee finds substance in proceeding against the caste validity certificate issued to the petitioner’s paternal cousin, it would be open to the Committee to do so as per law.
Appearances:
For Petitioners – Mr. R.K. Mendadkar, Mr. Siddharth Sawai, Ms. Priyanka Shaw, Mr. Jagdish Kawale
For Respondents – Ms. D.S. Deshmukh (AGP), Mr. A.K. Naik (AGP)
