THE HON'BLE SRI JUSTICE C.V.NAGARJUNA REDDY WRIT PETITION No.22618 of 2010 Date: 02.11.2010 Between: Uppala @ Kothakapu Mahender Reddy ..... Petitioner AND The State of Andhra Pradesh, represented by its Secretary, Hyderabad and others .....Respondents Counsel for the Petitioner: Sri A.V. Sesha Sai Counsel for Respondents: Assistant Government Pleader for Revenue The Court made the following: ORDER: The petitioner, who claims to be the son of deceased Venkat Reddy, who was sated to have died accidentally, filed the present writ petition for a Mandamus to declare the letter No.12138/SER.II(2)/2006-4 dated 12.07.2006 issued by respondent No.1 and the consequential memo dated 26.07.2010 issued by respondent No.2 as illegal. The petitioner is one of the claimants before the Commissioner for Workmen Compensation in W.C.No.1541 of 1996. On the ground that his relationship with the deceased was not established, his claim was rejected. Challenging the said rejection order, the petitioner along with others filed C.M.A.No.2052 of 2000. This Court, vide order dated 02.05.2008, allowed the said C.M.A. and remanded the matter to the Commissioner for Workmen Compensation for a fresh adjudication. In the present writ petition, the grievance of the petitioner is that while respondent No.2 is not granting family membership certificate, the Commissioner is insisting on such a certificate to establish the relationship between the petitioner and the deceased. Respondent No.2 in his memo dated 26.07.2010 declined to issue the certificate on the ground that under letter dated 12.07.2006, the Mandal Revenue Officers (MROs) can only give family membership certificate in respect of the Government employees and that too to receive Government dues, if any, payable to Government servants in case of their death. Sri A. Sesha Sai, the learned counsel for the petitioner, stated that the said letter confining the powers of MROs to issue family membership certificate only to Government employees is irrational and arbitrary. In my opinion, this submission is without any merit. The classification made in the said letter is based on intelligible differentia between the two categories of people, namely, employees and unemployed. In case of employees, it is not difficult for MROs to verify the family members that deceased Government employee had left behind, while it may not be possible for him to ascertain with certainty the actual family members, in case of private individuals other than the Government employees. In this view of the matter, I do not find any irrationality or arbitrariness in the impugned letter dated 12.07.2006. The learned counsel for the petitioner further argued that the Commissioner is insisting on production of family membership certificate from MRO. In my opinion, such insistence does not conform to law because in the absence of any power or obligation on MRO to issue family membership certificate, the Commissioner is not justified in insisting on production of such certificate. The petitioner is entitled to adduce any other evidence both oral and documentary to substantiate his claim that he is a family member and legal heir of the deceased workman. Subject to the above observations, the Writ Petition is disposed of. As a sequel to disposal of the writ petition, W.P.M.P.No.28835 of 2010 filed by the petitioner for interim relief is disposed of as infructuous. ________________________ C.V.NAGARJUNA REDDY, J 02nd November, 2010 GHN