ANKITA ARUN INGLE Vs. CHAIRMAN/COMMISSIONER, SCHEDULED TRIBE CASTE CERTIFICATE SCRUTINY COMMITTEE, AMARAVATI DIVISION, AMRAVATI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Rule returnable forthwith. Heard finally by consent of the parties.

(2.) The challenge in this petition is to the order dated 2 September 2017 passed by the Scheduled Tribe Certificate Scrutiny Committee (for short 'the Scrutiny Committee') by which the caste certificate of the petitioner belonging to Thakur scheduled tribe in the State of Maharashtra has been invalidated.

(3.) The petitioner had obtained a caste certificate dated 30 May 2014 of the petitioner belonging to Thakur Scheduled Tribe, issued by the competent authority/Sub-Divisional Officer, Buldana. The petitioner through the educational institution in which she was pursuing her studies had made a proposal for verification of her tribe claim as forwarded to the scrutiny committee. Along with the said proposal, the petitioner had submitted number of documents which are referred in paragraph 2 of the impugned order numbering to about 61. The documents which were submitted, contained some pre-constitution documents being the birth extract of the great grandfather, extract of school admission register of the cousin grandfather etc. which are listed out at Sr.Nos. 11, 12, 13 and 14. Apart from these documents, the petitioner also submitted for consideration of the scrutiny committee, the caste certificates and the caste validity certificates issued in favour of the near relatives of the petitioner namely petitioner's uncle, real sister and cousins of the petitioner. The following are the details of the caste validity certificate issued to these relatives of the petitioner as also referred in paragraph 2 of the impugned order: <FRM>JUDGEMENT_322_LAWS(BOM)9_2017.html</FRM> The Caste Scrutiny Committee considered the proposal of the petitioner as also the documents as placed on record and by the impugned order the Scrutiny Committee has come to a conclusion that the petitioner has failed in the affinity test, as also the caste validity certificate granted in favour of the petitioner's Uncle Chat arsing also cannot be considered as at the relevant time, the vigilance and the affinity tests were conducted, when the validity was granted to the caste certificate obtained by the petitioner's uncle Chat arsing. The Scrutiny committee observed that as the petitioner has inter alia failed in the affinity test, and that some cousins of the petitioner as are denied a validity to their caste certificates by an order dated 31 January 2017 passed by the Caste Scrutiny Committee, it was thought it appropriate to reject the proposal to grant validity to the caste certificate of the petitioner.