THE HON'BLE SRI JUSTICE C.V.NAGARJUNA REDDY WRIT PETITION No.19187 of 2002 DATE: 14.10.2009 Between: Kona Subbarao and others ..... PETITIONERS AND The District Collector and District Magistrate, East Godavari, Kakinada and others .....RESPONDENTS Counsel for the Petitioners : MR.M.BABJI FOR MR. K.VENKATESH Counsel for the Respondents : AGP FOR SOCIAL WELFARE The Court made the following : ORDER: The petitioners, who felt aggrieved by order, dated 15.12.2000 and G.O.Ms.No.77, dated 22.07.2002 passed by respondent Nos.1 and 5 respectively, filed this writ petition questioning their validity. Heard the learned counsel for the petitioners and the learned Assistant Government Pleader for Social Welfare. The petitioners obtained community certificates showing that they belong to Konda Kapu community, a recognized Scheduled Tribe. The said certificates were initially cancelled by respondent No.3 vide his proceedings, dated 30.11.1998. The petitioners filed Writ Petition No.19438 of 1988 in this Court questioning the said proceedings. The said writ petition was allowed by this Court vide order, dated 04.03.1996 with liberty to the District Collector to consider the entire material and pass a fresh order keeping in view the instructions of the Government from time to time regarding issuance of caste certificates. Thereafter, respondent No.1 – the District Collector, East Godavari, referred the certificates to the District Level Scrutiny Committee (for short ‘the Committee’) constituted under the provisions of the Andhra Pradesh (Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Backward Classes) Regulation of Issuance of Community Certificates Act, 1993 and the Rules made thereunder (for short ‘the Act’ and ‘the Rules’ respectively). The Committee gave show cause notices to the petitioners and adjourned the enquiry from time to time. As the petitioners failed to submit their explanations/objections, the Committee considered the material on record and sent its report to respondent No.1 by recording the finding that the petitioners do not belong to Konda Kapu community and recommended for cancellation of the community certificates issued in their favour. Accordingly, respondent No.1 passed order, dated 15.12.2000 whereby he cancelled the community certificates issued in favour of the petitioners. The petitioners being unsuccessful in the appeal filed against the said order before respondent No.5, filed the present writ petition questioning the two orders passed by respondent Nos.1 and 5. Respondent No.1 filed a counter-affidavit resisting the contentions raised by the petitioners and inter alia stated that due procedure was followed by the Committee and that the petitioners failed to avail the repeated opportunities offered to them to participate in the enquiry before the Committee and adduce relevant evidence to show that they belong to Konda Kapu community. He placed reliance on the observations of this Court in Writ Petition No.11051 of 1988 to the effect that the burden of proof always lies on the individuals who claim the status of Scheduled Caste, Scheduled Tribe, Backward Class Communities and that as the petitioners failed to produce any proof in support of their claim, the Committee perused the report submitted by the Revenue Divisional Officer and the other records in coming to the conclusion that the petitioners do not belong to Konda Kapu community. He also stated that as order, dated 15.12.2000 was comprehensive, there was no necessity for respondent No.5 to give detailed reasons, while affirming the said order. At the hearing, the learned counsel for the petitioners submitted that the Committee failed to follow the procedure prescribed under Rule 9(3) of the Rules, which mandates that the Committee, in case of fraudulent claims shall cause enquiry by the Protection of Civil Rights/Vigilance Cell also i.e., through the Officer representing the Protection of Civil Rights/Vigilance Cell as the member of the Committee and that the Committee shall thereafter finalise its findings based on the enquiry reports of the Revenue Department made available by the District Collector and the reports of the Protection of Civil Rights/Vigilance Cell and the Expert or Officer of the Research Organisation of the Commissionerate of Social Welfare/Tribal Welfare. The learned counsel further submitted that as this procedure was not followed by the Committee, the order passed by respondent No.1 based on the report of the Committee cannot be sustained. The learned counsel also submitted that respondent No.5 failed to give reasons, while dismissing the appeal and therefore, the order passed by it is also unsustainable in law. I have carefully considered the submissions of the learned counsel for the petitioners and perused the record. Respondent No.1 in his order has extracted the relevant part of the report of the Committee concerning the failure of the petitioners to file their explanations/objections to the show cause notices and participate in the enquiry. A perusal of the said report shows that the case was posted before the Committee on as many as 25 occasions between 09.03.1998 and 23.10.2000. None of the petitioners filed explanations/objections before the Committee and participated in the enquiry. The Committee perused the reports of the Revenue Divisional Officer and the Tahsildar and also the record of the Sub-Collector, Rampachodavaram, which contained the material pertaining to the genealogy of the petitioners as recorded by him in 1988, when enquiry was initially initiated. The Committee has gone into the aspects, such as, relationship, social acceptability and birth registers, and came to the specific conclusion that the petitioners did not belong to Konda Kapu community. It is clearly evident from the report of the Committee that all those persons, with whom the petitioners had marital relationship, belong to Kapu community as evident from the birth registers available in the record produced by the Sub-Collector, Rampachodavaram. In the absence of any contra evidence produced by the petitioners, the Committee has concluded that the petitioners do not belong to Konda Kapu community. In the appeal, respondent No.5 noted that the petitioners failed to produce any evidence to rebut the documentary evidence available with respondent No.1 showing that they did not belong to Konda Kapu community and that having regard to the detailed reasons contained in the order of respondent No.1, it had no reasons to interfere with the same. Accordingly, respondent No.5 dismissed the appeal. Neither before respondent No.5 nor in the present writ petition, the petitioners have given any explanation whatsoever for not submitting their objections/explanations to the notice issued in Form VI by the Committee. The petitioners failed to demonstrate as to how the findings of the Committee reached on the basis of the relevant material collected by them, were incorrect. The only ground on which the petitioners sought to impeach the findings of the Committee was that the latter has not followed the procedure prescribed under Rule 9(3) of the Rules. While the respondents have not produced the record to show whether the Committee has called for any report from the Protection of Civil Rights/Vigilance Cell for being compared with the report of the Revenue Divisional Officer, in my considered view, even the absence of a report from the Protection of Civil Rights/Vigilance Cell would not vitiate the conclusion arrived at by the Committee in the present case because, the contents of the show cause notice were not controverted by the petitioners by filing explanation and therefore, on the facts of the case, the allegations regarding non-genuineness of the certificates obtained by the petitioners went unrebutted. Though Rule 9(3) of the Rules appears to have been couched in mandatory terms, in the absence of the petitioners either giving their objections to Form VI notice or asserting their claim that they belong to Konda Kapu community, I am not inclined to invalidate the order of respondent No.1 on the ground that the Committee has not followed the procedure prescribed under Rule 9(3) of the Rules. Part XVI of the Constitution of India, evidently in recognition of the economic and social backwardness of the Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and other weaker classes made special provisions in respect of these classes. They include reservation of seats for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in the House of the People (Article 330), reservation of seats in the Legislative Assemblies of the States (Article 332) and claims of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes to services and posts (Article 335). Under Article 338, National Commission for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes is envisaged and the Commission’s duty is inter alia to participate and advise the State on the planning process of socio-economic development of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes and to evaluate the progress of their development under the Union and any State. Article 341(1) of the Constitution inter alia empowers the President of India, after consultation with the Governor of the State concerned to specify by public notification the castes, races or tribes or parts of or groups within castes, races or tribes, which shall, for the purposes of the Constitution, be deemed to be Scheduled Castes in relation to that State. In Punit Rai v. Dinesh Chaudhary, the Supreme Court held that the object of Clause (1) of Article 341 is to provide preferential right by way of protection to the members of the Scheduled Castes having regard to the economic and educational backwardness from which they suffer. It was also held that it is in furtherance of this object that the President has been authorized to limit the notification to parts or groups within the castes. The President of India in exercise of his power conferred on him under Article 341(1) of the Constitution notified the Constitution (Scheduled Castes) Order, 1950. In pursuit of this constitutional goal of amelioration of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes and as a part of process of their empowerment, the States and Union have been making legislations providing for reservations in their favour in matters of public employment, admission into educational institutions and elective offices. The object of reservations is virtually, being frustrated by the persons belonging to forward classes by using their ingenuity in obtaining false certificates. I have no doubt in my mind that the present case is one such instance, where the affirmative action envisaged under the Constitution is cornered by the persons, such as, the petitioners on the basis of false community certificates. The petitioners having failed to participate in the enquiry and asserted their claim that they belong to Scheduled Tribe community, cannot be allowed to maintain the writ petition under Article 226 of the Constitution of India, because the jurisdiction of this Court is discretionary in nature. This Court would not lend a helping hand to such persons. The law is well settled that every illegal action need not be corrected while exercising writ jurisdiction, unless the Court is satisfied with the bona fides of the persons who approached the Court. As noted hereinabove, the petitioners not only failed to participate in the enquiry despite being afforded repeated opportunities but also failed to explain their failure to participate in such enquiry. This conduct of the petitioners therefore, disentitles them to invoke the extraordinary jurisdiction of this Court in order to question the orders passed by respondent Nos.1 and 5. With regard to the contention that respondent No.5 failed to give reasons, as observed herein before, respondent No.5 has taken note of the fact that the petitioners failed to produce any evidence to rebut the documentary evidence available with the authorities and having regard to the detailed reasons contained in the order of respondent No.1, it did not see any reason to interfere with the same. Though no elaborate reasons have been given by respondent No.5, it would be well to remember that respondent No.5 has merely affirmed the order of respondent No.1. Therefore, no detailed reasons need be recorded by it in doing so. At any rate, in this writ petition, the petitioners failed to point out any particular error in the findings of the Committee based on which respondent No.1 has cancelled their community certificates. For all the aforementioned reasons, I do not find any merit in this writ petition, which is accordingly, dismissed. C.V.NAGARJUNA REDDY, J 14th OCTOBER, 2009. kvni