Uttarakhand High Court
Rajesh vs State Of Uttarakhand And Others on 31 August, 2021
HIGH COURT OF UTTARAKHAND
AT NAINITAL
Writ Petition (M/S) No. 404 of 2021
Rajesh ... Petitioner
Vs.
State of Uttarakhand and others ... Respondents
Advocates : Mr. Abhishek Joshi, Advocate along with Mr. Adarsh Tiwari,
Advocate, for the petitioner
Mr. H.M. Raturi, Deputy Advocate General, for the State of
Uttarakhand.
Hon'ble Sharad Kumar Sharma, J.
The grievance of the petitioner, as agitated in the present writ
petition is, that he has contended that he is permanently residing in
Kichha, which falls to be within the territorial domain of the State
of Uttarakhand and apart from the fact that he is residing
permanently in Kichha, he and his family members have also been
issued with the Aadhaar Card, Ration Card, as well as the Voter ID
Card, to fortify the fact that they are permanently residing in the
State of Uttarakhand.
2. The grievance of the petitioner is that after their permanent
abode in the State of Uttarakhand, they have also been issued with
a permanent resident certificate by the State of Uttarakhand, which
has been issued on the basis of an inquiry report, which was
submitted by the competent revenue authorities and accordingly, on
the basis of the report submitted by the Tehsildar, the permanent
resident certificate had been issued in his favour on 18.12.2020,
which still holds to be valid.
3. Despite the aforesaid facts, the petitioner contends, that he
had filed his application for the grant of caste certificate,
contending thereof that since he is 'Saini', by caste, which is an
'OBC' category, which is included in the Schedule of reserved
category caste, which are recognised by the State, and hence he
would be entitled to be granted with the caste certificate. But the
grievance raised by the petitioner is that by virtue of the
communication which he has received, his application for the grant
of caste certificate has been rejected, even without assigning any
reasons for its rejection.
4. Initially, when the writ petition was entertained, the counter
affidavit was called for from the respondent/State, and the
respondents have filed their counter affidavit and in the counter
affidavit, particularly, the pleadings which have been raised in para
6 of the counter affidavit, it has been submitted by qualifying the
reasonings that the respondents had submitted, in pleadings, that
the application of the petitioner, for the grant of the caste certificate
has been rejected on the ground, that he has not been able to file
any document in support thereof. But the counter affidavit itself
does not show, what was the gravity and which of the documents or
what was the nature of the documents, which were required to be
supplied by the petitioner, in order to enable the respondents to
issue the caste certificate.
5. Apart from that the Annexure 1 to the counter affidavit,
which has been taken, as to be the basis of rejection order issued by
Revenue Sub Inspector, in fact, on reading of the same, it doesn't
reflect or make any sense that it has got any correlation with regard
to the order of rejection of claim of the petitioner. Besides this, this
Court, being conscious of the fact that subsequent thereto, the State
had already issued Government Order, which has provided therein
that a candidate, who is an applicant for the grant of caste
certificate, if he is able to substantiate his case by placing on record
the permanent resident certificate, which has been issued by the
competent authority, after conducting inquiry, that in itself will be
taken as to be a document sufficient enough to satisfy the terms and
conditions of the application for the grant of caste certificate
because its only a recognition of caste, which has been notified by
State, as to a reserved caste.
6. In the present case, the petitioner has placed the permanent
resident certificate on record. Apart from it, a very vague ground,
which has been pleaded in para 6, it is not the case of the
respondents that the caste for which the petitioner prays for the
grant of caste certificate i.e. 'Saini', is not a scheduled caste, as
notified by the State Government, nor it is the case of the
respondents that the petitioner does not belong to the said caste.
7. In that eventuality, considering the fact that exclusively from
the view point that the petitioner has been issued with the
permanent resident certificate by the competent state authority, and
which still holds intact and good in the eyes of law, the petitioner
would be entitled to be granted with the caste certificate, as it has
been notified and recognised by the Order of 1950.
8. In that view of the matter, the writ petition is allowed. The
impugned order, rejecting the application, filed by the petitioner for
grant of caste certificate is quashed. A writ of mandamus is issued
to the respondent No. 3, to issue a caste certificate to the petitioner
within a period of two months from the date of production of the
certified copy of this judgment.
9. Subject to above, the writ petition would stand allowed.
(Sharad Kumar Sharma, J.)
31.08.2021
Mahinder/
