The Bombay High Court recently comprising of a bench of Justices R.D.Dhanuka and V. G. Bisht. remarked that affinity test may not be regarded as a litmus test for establishing the link of the applicant with a scheduled tribe. (Satish Janardan Thakur & Onr. V St Caste Certificate Verification Committee)
The bench noted that rejection of claim of petitioners on the ground of failure to establish cultural affinity is absolutely unwarranted such findings cannot be legally sustained.
Nobody can be denied the benefit on the ground that their present traits do not match the tribe’s peculiar anthropological and ethnological traits, deity, rituals, customs, mode of marriage, death ceremonies, etc. since affinity test can only be used to corroborate the documentary evidence and should not be the sole criteria to reject the claim.
Facts of the Case
This Petition was filed under Article 226 challenging the impugned judgment and order of the Scheduled Tribe Caste Certificate Verification Committee, Pune Division. The Petitioner seeks direction for the respondents to validate his tribal claim and thus hold that he belongs to ‘Thakar’ (Reserved Category).
The Petitioner No.1 was working as a Senior Clerk in the office of Superintendent Pay and Provident Unit in Solapur and Petitioner No.2 is his who is a college-going boy. The petitioners have submitted that the Caste Certificate was issued in 2003 by the Competent Authority that clearly depicted that both of them belong to Thakar. He submitted his Caste Certificate in 2007 to respondents and his son submitted it in 2013 for verification of the tribe claim along with all necessary documents in support of their tribe claim. However, respondent No.1 rejected the tribe claim.
According to petitioners, the school records of the father show his caste as Hindu- Thakar and the same is the case with his relatives. However, evidence is much prior to the Presidential Order of the year 1950 and thus, the said evidence has got the probative value but the same was not taken into consideration by the committee.
The certificates of validity of the relatives of the petitioners are not only in very much operation but the same till date have not been invalidated or cancelled by the Scrutiny Committee after giving an opportunity to the concerned relatives of the petitioners.
Contention of the Parties
Mr.Kudle, learned Counsel for the petitioners, submitted before the court that respondent No.1 Scrutiny Committee has failed to attach importance to birth extract of the father of petitioner No.1 and also the records which is in existence much prior to the Presidential Order of the year 1950. Similarly, the validity certificates of the blood relations of the petitioners have been deliberately ignored by respondent No.1 Scrutiny Committee without any valid reason and thereby committed an error causing substantial legal injury to the petitioners.
The learned Counsel took the court through the various documents filed on record and then urged that the impugned order deserves to be set aside. He placed reliance on the judgment of this Court in case of Ms.Snehal Dilip Gaikwad Vs Scheduled Tribe Caste Certificate Verification Committee, Pune Division, Pune & Ors. & Ors..
Per contra, Mrs.Purav, learned AGP for respondent Nos. 1 to 3, on the other hand, canvassed before the court that the contents of enquiry report were duly taken into consideration by the Scrutiny Committee and rightly arrived at a conclusion that the petitioners had failed to prove their tribe claim not only on the basis of the documentary evidence but also from the point of view of the cultural affinity, traits, and tradition of the petitioners’ community. In the circumstances, there was no reason for respondent No.1 Scrutiny Committee to issue certificate of validity of the tribe claim of the petitioners. There being no merit in the Petition, the same is liable to be dismissed with costs, argued learned AGP.
Courts Observation & Judgment
The bench at the very outset noted, “We have also carefully seen and inspected the School Leaving Certificates of petitioner No.1 and his relations. In our opinion, the Scrutiny Committee erroneously put on record the above said observations. It lost sight of the fact, which we have already mentioned by referring to affidavit of petitioner No.1, that under what circumstances the Caste of petitioner No.1 was shown Hindu Thakur in School Leaving Certificates. These certificates nowhere show his Caste as Hindu – Maratha as is noted by the Scrutiny Committee. Similarly, it appears to us that the Scrutiny Committee totally ignored the contents of School Leaving Certificates of Janardan Gopal Gaikwad (father of petitioner No.1), Chandrakant Gopal Gaikwad (uncle of petitioner No.1), Vasant Gopalrao Gaikwad (uncle of petitioner No.1) and Mahadev Gopal Gaikwad (uncle of petitioner No.1). In all these School Leaving Certificates, Caste is shown as Thakar and not Hindu-Maratha as is indicated by the Scrutiny Committee.”
The bench observed that “Approach of Scrutiny Committee is absurd and preposterous since they blinked the contents of pre-constitutional school records. The Scrutiny Committee could not have proceeded in absence of concrete and clinching evidence, that too without offering a reasonable opportunity to these relatives of petitioners whose certificates of validity it was questioning. There is no perceptible and tangible basis to opine that certificates of validity of named relations were obtained or secured by suppression of facts or by misrepresentation.”
The HC referring to the case of Anand Vs. Committee for Scrutiny and Verification of Tribe Claims and Ors, wherein the Hon’ble Apex Court held that while applying the affinity test, a cautious approach has to be adopted, stated that
“the petitioner could not be denied the benefit on the ground that his present traits do not match his tribe’s peculiar anthropological and ethnological traits, deity, rituals, customs, mode of marriage, death ceremonies, etc., and thus the affinity test can only be used to corroborate the documentary evidence and should not be the sole criteria to reject the claim.”
The HC also opined that “if the caste claim of the candidate has been held to be belonging to Scheduled Tribe, then other close blood relatives cannot be denied the validity certificate. In the light of the ratio laid down by this Court in the case of Apoorva d/o Vinay Nichale as the petitioners’ real cousins are already granted caste validity certificates as belonging to Thakar- Scheduled Tribe, in that view of the matter, the present petitioners also deserve the similar certificates of validity.”
Thus, the HC held that the order of the Scrutiny Committee invalidating the claim of the petitioner is totally perverse and is unsustainable and hence was quashed and set aside.
The bench said, “(i)The impugned order dated 15th June, 2016 passed by the respondent No.1- Scheduled Tribe Caste Certificate Verification Committee, Pune Division, Pune (Exhibit-B to the petition) is hereby quashed and set aside;
(ii) Respondent No.1- Scheduled Tribe Caste Certificate Verification Committee, Pune Division, Pune is hereby directed to issue caste validity certificates in favour of the petitioners as “Thakar (ST-44)” within a period of four weeks from the date of communication of this order;
(iii) Rule is made absolute in aforesaid terms.
(iv) There shall be no order as to costs.”
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