THE HON’BLE SRI JUSTICE R. SUBHASH REDDY Writ Petition No.17074 of 2008 ORDER: 1 This Writ Petition is ﬁled seeking a direction by way of Mandamus to declare the action of the respondents 1 and 2 in not issuing S.T. Community Certiﬁcate to the petitioners by completing the enquiry under the Andhra Pradesh (SC, ST and BCs) Regulation of Issue of Community Certiﬁcates Act, 1993 and the Rules made there under as illegal and arbitrary and for a consequential direction to the respondents 1 and 2 to issue community certificates to them. 2 All the petitioners herein have appeared for EAMCET Examination, 2008 conducted by the third respondent herein and secured ranks of 84615, 50431 and 235517 respectively. It is their case that they all belong to Bentho Oriya Community, which is a notiﬁed Scheduled Tribe and the same is evident from their school records. It is stated that they made an application to the second respondent herein on 26.05.2008 and 29.05.2008 for issuance of their community certiﬁcates under the provisions of the Andhra Pradesh (SC, ST and BCs) Regulation of Issue of Community Certiﬁcates Act, 1993 (for short ‘the Act’) and the Rules made there under. Though it is obligatory on the part of the second respondent to issue community certiﬁcate within a period of 30 days after conducting discrete enquiry, the second respondent had not discharged his statutory duty and delayed issuance of such certificates. Alleging that the counselling date for admissions was already notiﬁed as 06.08.2008 and there was delay on the part of the second respondent in issuing the community certiﬁcates, they approached this court and ﬁled the present Writ Petition in the year 2008. 3 The grant of community certiﬁcate, nativity certiﬁcate and date of birth certiﬁcates is governed by the provisions of the Act. In exercise of power under Section 20 (1) of the Act, Rules are framed under G.O.Ms.No.58, Social Welfare (J) Department dated 12.05.1997. As per Rule 19 of the Rules, if the last date for admission into educational institution is getting expired, and if there is a delay in ﬁnalising the enquiry for issuing the community certiﬁcate, a duty is cast on the competent authority to inform the educational institutions to admit such candidate, on ﬁling of a declaration by such candidate, into the course which he has applied for admission. Inasmuch as the petitioners have already applied for the community certiﬁcates and as the last date for counselling was approaching, in view of the provisions under Rule 19 of the Rules, this Court by order dated 06.08.2008 granted permission to treat the petitioners under S.C. category subject to ﬁling of an undertaking by them. The said order was clariﬁed by subsequent order dated 22.08.2008 changing their category from S.C. to S.T. 4 When the matter is taken up, it is submitted that pursuant to the directions of this Court, all the petitioners were admitted into B.Tech course and at present they are pursuing third year engineering course. 5 The second respondent i.e. Revenue Divisional Oﬃcer, Tekkali, Srikakulam District has ﬁled counter aﬃdavit. In the counter, while denying the allegations of the petitioners, he stated that the petitioners have not produced convincing documentary evidence in support of their claim that they belong to Bentho Oriya community. It is stated that as per the enquiry report submitted by the Tahsildars, Ichapuram, Kaviti and Kanchili Mandals and as per the Births and Deaths registers of Tippanaputtuga village of Ichapuram Mandal, Ammavariputtuga village of Kanchili Mandal and Kusumpuram village of Kaviti Mandal, prior to 1951 the caste of the people having the surname of “Majji”, “Amudala” and “Dalai” etc are noted in the caste column as “Oddi” or “Odiya” but not “Bentho – Oriya” (S.T.) Caste and the petitioners were not issued the Bentho Oriya caste certiﬁcate as they do not belong to the said caste. 6 Heard the learned counsel for the petitioners and also the learned Assistant Government Pleader for Social Welfare appearing for the respondents. 7 Although it is stated in the counter aﬃdavit that the petitioners do not belong to Bentho – Oriya community, but it is clear from the counter aﬃdavit that there is no order of rejection passed by the competent authority. If there is any claim for issuance of community certiﬁcate under Section 4 of the Act, there is a procedure for veriﬁcation as prescribed in the Rules. If there is any order of rejection on the claim of the applicant for community certiﬁcate, there is a right of appeal under section 7 of the Act r/w Rule 10 of the Rules made there under. In the instance case, the petitioners have ﬁled their applications for issuance of community certiﬁcates on 26.05.2008 and 29.05.2008 respectively and in spite of the same, there is no order of rejection passed by the competent authority. Mere statement that the petitioners do not belong to Bentho – Oriya community and as such they were not issued community certiﬁcates is not suﬃcient as per the scheme of the Act and the rules made there under without passing any order of rejection, because, in the event of rejection, there is a remedy available to the petitioners. 8 As it is pleaded that the petitioners belong to Bentho – Oriya caste and also as there is no order of rejection even by this time by the respondents, and inasmuch as the petitioners have completed three years of their engineering course in pursuance of the directions issued by this Court in W.P.M.P.No.22161 of 2008 dated 06.08.2008, I deem it appropriate to dispose of this Writ Petition directing the respondents to allow the petitioners to complete their course for which they were admitted into pursuant to the interim directions of this Court dated 06.08.2008 as clariﬁed by order dated 22.08.2008 in W.P.M.P.No.23904 of 2008. On such completion of their course, the petitioners are entitled for award of degree, which they are prosecuting and all the certiﬁcates relating to such course. However, it is made clear that the petitioners are not entitled to the beneﬁts to be given to the people belonging to Bento Oriya Caste, which is an S.T. category, unless they produce the relevant certiﬁcates in support of their caste, issued by the competent authority. 9 Subject to the above observations, this Writ Petition is disposed of. No order as to costs. --------------------------- R.Subhash Reddy, J. 01.12.2011 Kvsn