IRENE IMMANUEL Vs. STATE OF KERALA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) These writ petitions are filed challenging the communications issued by the jurisdictional Tahsildar rejecting the request for community certificate in respect of the petitioners. It is submitted that the requests for community certificate are rejected on the ground that they have to be obtained from Tamil Nadu, where the petitioners family originally migrated from.

(2.) Heard the learned counsel for the petitioners and the learned Government Pleader.

(3.) The learned counsel for the petitioners submits that the petitioners' parents had migrated to Kerala even before the petitioners' birth and that the petitioners were born and brought up in Kerala. It is submitted that they had produced the community certificate issued from their Diocese concerned and also all records to show that they were born in Kerala and were permanently residing here. However, relying on a Government Order dated 8.3.2019, the Tahsildars concerned have rejected the request for community certificate stating that they have no jurisdiction and that the petitioners have to obtain community certificates from the authorities in Tamil Nadu, where their family originally migrated from. The learned counsel for the petitioners submits that the petitioners being persons belonging to Other Backward Classes, who had migrated from Tamil Nadu to Kerala after the issuance of the Presidential Order, the Government order itself provides for consideration of their claims for community certificate. It is stated that since the community, Latin Catholic, to which the petitioners belonging is an Other Backward Class community both in Tamil Nadu and in Kerala, the respondents are duty bound to issue community certificate to the petitioners so as to enable them to avail the benefits in Kerala as well.