WP/7299/2010 1 IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE OF BOMBAY BENCH AT AURANGABAD WRIT PETITION NO. 7299 OF 2010 Rahul Ramesh Tanure Age minor, Occ. Education, R/o Kundalwadi, Tq. Biloli, District Nanded, through father/ natural Guardian Shri Ramesh Nagnath Tanure, Age 36 years, Occ. Agri., R/o as above. ..Petitioner VERSUS 1. The State of Maharashtra Through Secretary to Tribal Development Department, Mantralaya, Mumbai. 2. The Scheduled Tribe Caste Certificate Verification Committee, Aurangabad through its Deputy Director (R), Aurangabad. 3. The Sub Divisional Officer, Degloor, Dist. Nanded. ..Respondents ... Advocate for Petitioner : Shri Vibhute Sunil M. AGP for Respondent 1 : Smt. Shinde V.A. Advocate for Respondent 2 : Shri Phatake Rajendra P. ... CORAM : D B BHOSALE & S B DESHMUKH, JJ. Dated : August 04, 2011 ORAL JUDGMENT : (Per Bhosale, J.) - 1. Heard learned counsel for the parties. 2. Rule. By consent, Rule made returnable forthwith and the petition is taken up for final disposal. WP/7299/2010 2 3. This writ petition impugns the order dated 25.1.2010 passed by respondent 2 - Scrutiny Committee and the order dated 23.12.2009 passed by respondent 3 - Sub Divisional Officer, Degloor, District Nanded. By these orders, the petitioner's application for issuance of caste certificate came to be rejected. The petitioner claims that he belongs to Mannervarlu - a Scheduled Tribe. 4. From perusal of the order of respondent 2 - Scrutiny Committee, it is clear that the Scrutiny Committee has not recorded independent reasons for rejecting the petitioner's appeal and simply confirmed the order passed by Sub Divisional Officer holding that the order of the Sub Divisional Officer is satisfactory. We have, therefore, perused the order passed by the Sub Divisional Office dated 23.12.2009. That order also, in our opinion, does not refer to the documents produced by the petitioner. The Sub-Divisional Officer by making reference to two validity certificates of the petitioner's relatives, rejected the petitioner's application holding that all the documents relied upon by the petitioner are recent one. In other words, he rejected the application, since the petitioner could not and did not produce any document prior to 1950 in support of his claim. 5. We have perused the Maharashtra Scheduled Tribes (Regulation of Issuance and Verification of) Certificate Rules, 2003 (for WP/7299/2010 3 brevity, "said Rules" hereinafter). Rule 3 thereof provides the procedure for obtaining Scheduled Tribe certificate from the competent authority. Sub-rule (3) thereof provides that the applicant should furnish attested copies of the documents mentioned in clause (a) to (f). Sub-rule (4) provides that if applicant is unable to produce "any one or more" of the documents mentioned under clauses (a) to (f), in such cases, the applicant should state the reasons therefor in his affidavit and in that event the competent authority has required to consider the same and after conducting enquiry as he deems fit, should decide the claim on merits. It may be true that the petitioner did not produce old documents in support of his claim that he belongs to Scheduled Tribe, and the document to show ordinary place of his residence prior to the date of notification of such Schedule Tribe. But, in that event the Sub-Divisional Officer ought to have directed and/or granted an opportunity to the applicant to file affidavit as contemplated by sub-rule (4) of Rule 3 of the said Rules. Since the procedure as contemplated by these Rules was not scrupulously followed, we are inclined to set aside both the orders and remand the matter to the Sub-Divisional Officer to consider the petitioner's application afresh. Order accordingly. 6. The Sub-Divisional Officer shall allow the applicant to produce additional documents as contemplated by sub-rule (3) of Rule 3 of the Rules or if any one or more of the documents mentioned in clauses (a) to (f) is not available, he shall allow the petitioner to file affidavit stating WP/7299/2010 4 the reasons as contemplated by sub-rule (4). The Sub-Divisional Officer shall consider the petitioner's application afresh as expeditiously as possible and preferably within twelve weeks from the date of receipt of this order, provided, the petitioner, if he so desires, files additional documents including the affidavit as contemplated by Sub-rule 4, within a period of four weeks from the date of receipt of this order before the concerned Sub-Divisional Officer. The petitioner is directed to appear before the concerned Sub-Divisional Officer within a period of four weeks from today, along with a copy of this order duly authenticated by Court Shirastedar. 7. Rule is accordingly made absolute. No order as to costs. 8. Registry to make available authentic copy of this order to the requesting party. ( S B DESHMUKH, J. ) ( D B BHOSALE, J. ) ... akl