Bombay High Court
Shubhangi Vijay Chaudhari vs Scheduled Tribe Certificate ... on 23 August, 2023
Bench: Mangesh S. Patil, Shailesh P. Brahme
2023:BHC-AUG:18262-DB
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IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT BOMBAY
BENCH AT AURANGABAD
WRIT PETITION NO. 8981 OF 2023
Shubhangi D/o Vijay Chaudhari,
Age : 18 years, Occ : Education,
R/o Indral, Tq. Deoni,
Dist. Latur. .. Petitioner
Versus
Scheduled Tribe Certificate
Scrutiny Committee, Kinwat,
Office at Aurangabad,
through its Member Secretary. .. Respondent
Shri Mahesh S. Deshmukh, Advocate i/by Shri Sagar S. Phatale,
Advocate for the Petitioner.
Shri S. G. Sangle, A.G.P. for the Respondent.
CORAM : MANGESH S. PATIL AND
SHAILESH P. BRAHME, JJ.
DATE : 23 AUGUST 2023.
FINAL ORDER (Per Shailesh P. Brahme, J.) :-
. Heard both sides for final disposal at admission stage
considering the urgency expressed by the petitioner.
2. The petitioner has taken exception to the judgment and
order dated 06.04.2023 passed by the respondent/Scrutiny
Committee invalidating her tribe claim as belonging to 'Rajgond'
(Scheduled Tribe).
3. The fulcrum of the submissions of the petitioner is that in
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the wake of validity certificates issued to Om Anantram and
Shivnand Vijay, it is travesty of justice to deny the validity to the
petitioner.
4. The learned Assistant Government Pleader supports the
impugned judgment and order. He would submit that the
Scrutiny Committee has rightly held that the caste of the
petitioner is Telang and the validity certificates are not reliable.
He would submit that the scrutiny committee has arrived at
plausible and reasonable conclusion which cannot be faulted.
5. Our attention is drawn to the genealogy which is at page
No. 45. We find that there are number of validity holders from
the paternal side to support the petitioner. Out of them two are
issued with validity certificates in pursuance of the orders passed
by this Court. The petitioner has placed on record the judgment
and order dated 12.01.2021 in Writ Petition No. 328 of 2021 in
the matter of Om Anantram Chaudhari and another. Similar
order passed by the Division Bench of this Court in Writ Petition
No. 1383 of 2022 in the matter of Shivanand Vijay Chaudhari is
also placed on record. After considering self same record in both
the matters directions are issued to issue validity certificates,
conditionally. We also propose to follow the same course.
6. It is not permissible for the scrutiny committee to examine
self same record and to arrive at any finding inconsistent with
the decision taken by this Court. In that view of the matter the
scrutiny committee has committed perversity.
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7. We find that the impugned judgment and order is
unsustainable. We propose to allow the writ petition partly by
passing following order.
ORDER
A. The writ petition is partly allowed.
B. The impugned judgment and order passed by the
respondent/scrutiny committee is quashed and set aside.
C. The respondent/Scrutiny Committee shall issue validity
certificate to the petitioner as belonging to 'Rajgond' (Scheduled
Tribe) forthwith conditionally in the prescribed format without
adding anything.
D. The said validity certificate shall be subject to the final
outcome of the matters which the committee has decided to re-
open.
E. The petitioner shall not be entitled to claim equities.
[ SHAILESH P. BRAHME, J.] [ MANGESH S. PATIL, J.]
bsb/Aug. 23
