DATTU NAMDEV THAKUR Vs. STATE OF MAHARASHTRA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Special Leave Petition(C) Nos. 3314, 3365 and 3370, all of 2010, which are on board today, all arise out of the judgment and final order dated 14th December, 2009, passed by the Aurangabad Bench of the Bombay High Court in Writ Petition Nos. 7813 of 2009, 8048 of 2009 and 7289 of 2009.

(2.) The Petitioner in SLP(C) No. 3314 of 2010, is the father of the Petitioners in the other two Special Leave Petitions, one being the son and the other being the daughter of the Petitioner, Dattu Thakur, son of Namdev Thakur. In all these cases, the grievance is common since the Caste Certificates granted to them on 7th June, 2001, by the competent authorities were invalidated by the Caste Scrutiny Committee by its orders dated 4th September, 2009 and 24th September, 2009.

(3.) The Caste Certificates issued to the Petitioners were invalidated mainly on the ground that they were unable to satisfy the Caste Scrutiny Committee that they belong to the Thakur tribe, which is recorded as a Scheduled Tribe at Serial No. 44 of the Maharashtra Scheduled Tribes List. The Caste Scrutiny Committee also came to the finding that the School Leaving Certificate of the father of the Petitioner in SLP(C) No. 3314 of 2010, did not really support the case of the Petitioners who, in any event, had also failed in the affinity test. It was submitted that the documents tendered by them did not conform to their claim. Furthermore, the Petitioners were also unable to prove by way of affinity test that they belong to the Thakur Scheduled Tribe.