T DURGABAI Vs. STATE OF ANDHRA PRADESH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioner seeks the issuance of a writ of Mandamus directing the respondents to include her as one of the selected candidates for the Pre-Professional Course in Medicine for the academic year 1958-59.

(2.) She applied for admission to the Pre-Professional Course claiming to belong to a community called Konda Kapu which is a scheduled tribe within the purview of the order issued by the President in or about 1950 classifying certain communities and tribes as scheduled castes and tribes for the purpose of affording educational facilities. The application was accompanied by two certificates of social status of the petitioner given by the First Class Magistrate, Vijayawada, which state that she belongs to a scheduled tribe, an extract of the first page of her S. S. L. C. Register and an extract from the birth register. The entry in her S. S. L. C. Register described her as Hindu Kapu. The birth extract sent by her stated that she belonged to the Telaga community. Having regard to all these discrepancies, the Selection Committee required the petitioner to produce a certificate showing that she was a Konda Kapu and a resident in the scheduled areas. They further fixed her interview for 28-7-1958. At the interview, she produced a Nativity certificate from an Honorary Presidency Magistrate, Madras, counter-signed by the Collector of that place reciting that the parent of the candidate for admission into the college had his permanent residence in the village Kasavaram, Bhadrachalam Taluk, East Godavari District in the State of Andhra Pradesh. The Selection Committee was not satisfied with this certificate, obviously for the reason that neither the Honorary Magistrate nor the Collector of that place had any means of knowing of the community or the residence of the applicants father. They seemed to have felt that the certificates should be by any of the officers enumerated in the annexure to the G. O. of the area within whose jurisdiction the applicant or her father was a resident at the relevant time. In short, the Selection Committee reached the conclusion that the social status certificates produced by the applicant had not established that she was a Konda Kapu and that she or her father was a resident of the scheduled areas. However, the Committee thought of affording another opportunity to the applicant to show that she satisfied the rule and they gave her time till the 30th to produce the certificates as required by the G. O. in proof of her belonging to the Konda Kapu community and residing in the scheduled area. No attempt was made to satisfy the Selection Committee about this condition within the time allowed with the result that the Selection Committee had not included her name in the list of selected candidates and the petitioner was informed of the result both in person and in writing.

(3.) Sometime thereafter she sent a nativity Certificate to the Principal of the Medical College purporting to have been issued by a member of the Legislative Assembly and another by the Karnam of that place counter-signed by the Personal Assistant to the Collector. The Principal suspected the genuineness of the certificates that the petitioners parent was still a resident in the scheduled areas. He also thought, having regard to the considerations pointed out by him, that there was no reason to change the original recommendation made by the Selection Committee. Thereafter, the applicant-petitioner has moved this Court under Art. 226 of the Constitution for the reliefs mentioned above.