WPMS/853/2024
2024 Latest Caselaw 690 UK

Uttarakhand High Court

WPMS/853/2024 on 10 April, 2024

Author: Manoj Kumar Tiwari

Bench: Manoj Kumar Tiwari

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                                 WPMS No. 853 of 2024
                                 Hon'ble Manoj Kumar Tiwari, J.

Mr. Sachin Kumar Sharma, Advocate for the petitioner.

2. Mr. Devesh Ghildiyal, Brief Holder for the State of Uttarakhand.

3. Petitioner is a permanent resident of State of Uttarakhand. According to her, she was born in a family, which belongs to gujjar community, which is recognised as Other Backward Class in State of Uttarakhand. She applied for caste certificate. Her request for issuance of caste certificate has been turned down by Tehsildar, Bhagwanpur, District Haridwar only on the ground that petitioner is now married.

4. Learned Brief Holder, on instructions, submits that since petitioner's husband is resident of State of Uttar Pradesh, therefore, it was not possible to issue OBC certificate to the petitioner.

5. The stand taken by respondents for denying OBC certificate to the petitioner is unsustainable. Caste status of a person is determined by birth and not by marriage. Marriage do not change the caste of a person, as held by Hon'ble Supreme Court in the case of Sunita Singh v. State of U.P., (2018) 2 SCC

493. Para no. 5 of the said judgment is extracted below:-

"5. There cannot be any dispute that the caste is determined by birth and the caste cannot be changed by marriage with a person of Scheduled Caste. Undoubtedly, the appellant was born in "Agarwal" family, which falls in general category and not in Scheduled Caste. Merely because her husband is belonging to a Scheduled Caste category, the appellant should not have been issued with a caste certificate showing her caste as Scheduled Caste. In that regard, the orders of the authorities as well as the judgment of the High Court cannot be faulted."

6. In such view of the matter, the ground taken for rejecting petitioner's application is unsustainable in the eyes of law.

7. The writ petition, therefore, deserves to be allowed and is hereby allowed. Impugned rejection order dated 21.03.2024 is quashed. Tehsildar, Bhagwanpur, District Haridwar is directed to examine petitioner's claim for issuance of caste certificate, as per law, within eight weeks from the date of production of certified copy of this order, untrammelled by any observation in this order.

(Manoj Kumar Tiwari, J.) 10.04.2024 Navin