Bombay High Court
Saurabh S/O Deorao Devghare vs State Of Maharashtra, Through Its ... on 31 August, 2021
Bench: S.B. Shukre, Anil S. Kilor
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IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT BOMBAY
NAGPUR BENCH, NAGPUR.
MISC. CIVIL APPLICATION (REVIEW) ST NO. 430 OF 2021
IN
WRIT PETITION NO. 3081 OF 2019
( Saurabh S/o Deorao Devghare Vs. State of Maharashtra, through its Secretary, Medical &
Drugs Department, Mantralaya, Mumbai-32 and others )
__________________________________________________________________________
Office Notes, Office Memoranda of Coram,
appearances, Court's orders or directions Court's or Judge's orders.
and Registrar's Orders.
Shri S.R. Narnaware, Advocate for petitioner
Shri N.R. Patil, AGP for the respondent nos. 1 and 2.
CORAM : SUNIL B. SHUKRE AND
ANIL S. KILOR, JJ.
DATE : 31st AUGUST, 2021.
Heard Shri Narnaware, learned counsel for
the petitioner and Shri Patil, learned Assistant
Government Pleader who appears by waiving notice for
respondent nos. 1 and 2.
2. The petitioner has sought review of the
judgment dated 1st March, 2021 delivered by this Court
in Writ Petition No. 3081 of 2019. The contention of
the petitioner is that the validity certificates issued to
the cousins of the petitioner from the paternal side,
namely Ramchandra Deoghare and Deepak Deoghare,
ought not to have been ignored by this Court on the
ground they were issued without holding any inquiry by
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the police vigilence cell. Learned counsel for the
petitioner submits that both these documents were
issued in the year 1995 and 1996 when the
Maharashtra Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes,
Denotified Tribes (Vimukta Jatis), Nomedic Tribes,
Other Backward Classes and Special Backward Category
(Regulation of Issuance and Verification of) Caste
Certificate Act, 2000 ( for short "Act of 2000) came in
force. He places reliance upon the case of Ashwini
Chavan Vrs. State of Maharashtra and others , Writ
Petition No. 28 of 2016 decided by this Court on 10th
April, 2017.
3. In the case of Ashwini Chavan Vrs. State of
Maharashtra (supra), this Court has taken a view that
the validity certificates issued prior to coming into force
of the Act of 2000, cannot be over looked by the
Scrutiny Committee just because they were issued
without any vigilance inquiry, unless, it has been found
that these validities have been issued by the Committee
having no jurisdiction or were the result of fault or
misrepresentation played upon the Scrutiny Committee.
So, the learned counsel for the petitioner is right when
he submits that the earlier validities should not be
ignored just because they were issued without holding
any inquiry by the police vigilance cell, as at the time
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when they were issued, no police vigilance cell was in
existence. But, we must say with due respect that this is
not the only ground on which the earlier validities
issued in favour of the Ramchandra Deoghare and
Deepak Deoghare have been rejected by this Court.
4. This Court, while dismissing the petition has
considered the over all effect of the documentary
evidence placed before the committee and in respect of
which specific argument was made by the learned
counsel for the applicant/petitioner. There were other
documents as well which had their impact on the
validities issued in favour of Ramchandra Deoghare and
Deepak Deoghare. These documents, in particular,
pertain to Naresh Deoghare and Vidyanand Deoghare,
the other cousins of the petitioner from the paternal
side. Caste Certificate of Naresh Deoghare was
invalidated by the order dated 26th August, 2010 and
the Caste Certificate of Vidyanand Deoghare was
invalidated by the order passed on 8 th December, 2016.
Both these invalidities have attained finality. This
would mean that between the same expanded
patriarchal family, there are two sets of documents, one
conferring status of validity to the caste claim of two
cousins of the petitioner and the other denying the
conferral of the caste status of "Halba" Scheduled Tribe
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upon two cousins of the petitioner. When there exists
two conflicting pieces of evidence, any Court or for that
matter the Scrutiny Committee would have no option
but to raise a doubt about reliability of such pieces of
evidence comprising conflicting documents and
therefore look for corroboration or additional evidence
from the petitioner in order to prove his claim as
regards the social status claimed by him. This is what
has been done by this Court while dismissing the
petition. This Court, therefore, considered the other
evidence available on record and examined the order
passed by the Scrutiny Committee in the light of that
evidence and came to the conclusion that the petitioner
failed to discharge his burden to establish his tribe
claim.
5. So, this is not a case wherein two validities
existing in the family have been rejected on the sole
ground that they were issued without there being any
inquiry made by police vigilance cell.
6. It is the submission of the learned counsel for
the petitioner that unnecessary importance has been
given by the Scrutiny Committee to "Koshti" entries in
the documents of some of the relatives of the petitioner.
According to him, such entries do not indicate the caste
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or the tribe of the person named in the document but,
they are indicative of the profession of weaving of that
person. He also submits that the Scrutiny Committee
relied upon some documents obtained during the course
of inquiry by the police vigilance cell, but all these
documents were of the persons not related to the
petitioner. He further submits that some documents
were additionally relied upon by the Scrutiny
Committee, but they were not part of the inquiry made
by police vigilence cell, and thus, in respect of these
documents no opportunity of hearing was afforded to
the petitioner.
7. He also submits that there was one document
which was issued prior to 1950 and therefore as held in
the case of Priya Pravin Parate Vs. Scheduled Tribe
Caste Certificate reported in 2013(1) Mah. Law Journal
180, this document ought to have been accepted by the
Scrutiny Committee as the conclusive proof of the tribe
claim of the petitioner.
8. We must say, all these contentions raised
before this Court relate to merits of the matter and on
going through the judgment sought to be reviewed by
the petitioner, we find that merits of the case as pleaded
by the petitioner have been appropriately considered by
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this Court and therefore, it would not be permissible for
this Court to go into the same again.
9. In the result, we find no merit in the review
application. Review application stands summarily
rejected.
JUDGE JUDGE
sknair
