{1} IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE OF BOMBAY BENCH AT AURANGABAD WRIT PETITION NO.5063 OF 2009 Santosh Zumbarlal Raut R/o Chaure Galli, Subhash Road, Beed, Dist-Beed PETITIONER VERSUS 1. The State of Maharashtra Through Principal Secretary, Revenue & Forest Department, Mantralaya, Mumbai 2. The Principal Secretary, Social Justice Department, Mantralaya ,Mumbai 3. Scheduled Caste, Vimukta Jati Other Backward Class and Special Backward Class, Divisional Caste Certificate Scrutiny Committee No.1 Aurangabad 4. Shri.Kadri Additional Commissioner, Aurangabad Division Aurangabad and Chairman Scheduled Caste, Vimukta Jati Other Backward Class and Special Backward Class, Divisional Caste Certificate Scrutiny Committee No.1 Aurangabad 5. Dattatraya Wakode {2} Member, Scheduled Caste, Vimukta Jati Other Backward Class and Special Backward Class, Divisional Caste Certificate Scrutiny Committee No.1 Aurangabad 6. Shri.Vaidya, Member Secretary, Scheduled Caste, Vimukta Jati Other Backward Class and Special Backward Class, Divisional Caste Certificate Scrutiny Committee No.1 Aurangabad RESPONDENTS ....... Mr.M.S.Deshmukh, Advocate for petitioner Mr.V.H.Dighe, AGP for respondents No.1 and 2 Mr.B.L.Sagar Killarikar, Advocate for respondent No.3 Mr.S.T.Shelke, Advocate for respondent No.4 ....... [CORAM : P.V.HARDAS, and A.V.POTDAR, J.J.] DATE : 2nd September 2009 ORAL JUDGMENT (PER P.V.HARDAS, J.) : 1. Rule. Rule returnable forthwith. With the consent of learned counsel for the parties this petition is heard finally at the stage of admission. 2. A very curious question is raised in this petition, which in fact ought not to have been referred to this Court. By a majority {3} of 2:1, validity came to be granted to the petitioner in respect of his caste status. Since certificate was not being issued to the petitioner, the petitioner was constrained to file writ petition No. 3079/2009 in this Court. This Court, accordingly, directed that validity certificate be issued to the petitioner and disposed of the petition by accepting the statement made on behalf of the Committee that certificate would be issued to the petitioner within one week from the date of the order dated 20th July 2009. Accordingly, a certificate has been issued to the petitioner, which is annexed to the petition at Exhibit-J. In the column, which is meant for signatures of the members of the committee, the President of the Committee has put an endorsement “invalid”, above his signature. In respect of the column, relating to the signatures of two members of the Committee, both the members have also put endorsement “valid” above their signatures. In fact, putting of such endorsement is neither warranted by the proframa of the certificate nor it is, according to us, necessary to do so. Be that as it may. An apprehension and very rightly expressed by Mr.M.S.Deshmukh, learned counsel for the petitioner is that on bare perusal of the validity certificate the authorities are bound to state that the claim of the petitioner has been rendered invalid or to some extend cloud is raised in respect of the validity certificate. 3. Since the column does not require the signatories i.e. members of the committee to state whether it is validated or invalidated, above their signatures, we direct the committee to {4} issue appropriate validity certificate to the petitioner. Column No. 7, which deals the decision of the committee, is the column which can reflect the judgment of the committee granting validity to the petitioner. 4. In the light of that, therefore, we direct the petitioner to submit original of this validity certificate (Exhibit-J) to the Committee. We also direct the committee to issue a fresh validity certificate to the petitioner within one week from today. The aforesaid certificate should not contain any endorsement above the signatures of the members in respect of either validity or invalidity of the claim. 5. Rule is thus made absolute on the above terms with no order as to costs. Copy of this order duly authenticated be provided to the parties to act upon. [A.V.POTDAR, J.] [P.V.HARDAS, J.] drp/wp5063-09