1 IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT BOMBAY BENCH AT AURANGABAD. WRIT PETITION NO. 1010 OF 2010. Kum. Supriya D/o Subhashrao Govindwar, Age Minor, Occu. Education, r/o at post Degloor, Tq. Degloor, District Nanded through father & natural guardian Shri Subhash S/o Shankarrao Govindwar, Age 43 years, Occu. Service, R/o as above .. PETITIONER. VERSUS 1) The State of Maharashtra, Through its Secretary, Tribal Development Department, Mantralaya, Mumai-32. 2) The Scheduled Tribe Certificate Verification Committee, Aurangabad Through its Dy. Director (R), Aurangabad. 3) The Sub-Divisional Officer, Degloor, Dist. Nanded .. RESPONDENTS. ... Shri S.M. Vibhute, Advocate for Petitioner. Shri U.S. Malte, Advocate for respondent No. 2. Shri K.G. Patil, Assistant Government Pleader, for respondent Nos. 1 & 3. CORAM : A.M. KHANWILKAR AND S.S. SHINDE, JJ. DATE : 16th FEBRUARY 2010. 2 PER COURT: (S.S. Shinde,J.) 1. Heard Learned Counsel appearing for the respective parties. Rule. Rule made returnable forthwith. By consent of the learned counsel for the parties, the matter is taken up for final hearing at the stage of admission. This Writ Petition takes exception to the decision dated 27-10-2009 passed by the respondent No. 2 i.e. The Scheduled Tribe Caste Committee Verification Committee, Aurangabad, thereby confirming the order of the Respondent No. 3 i.e. Sub Divisional Officer, Degloor, Dist. Nanded. The Sub Divisional Officer rejected the application preferred by the petitioner for getting certificate of “Mannerwarlu” Scheduled Tribe. The Sub Divisional Officer while rejecting the said application has recorded two reasons, firstly the Headmaster, Zilla Parishad School, Bhatgali, Degloor has observed that the School Admission extract register of the father of the applicant namely Govindwar Subhash Shankarrao, in the caste column the word “Mannerwarlu” is shown 3 overwrite. Secondly, the petitioner has not submitted any evidence before the Competent authority, in support of his claim of “Mannerwarlu” Scheduled Tribe by way of documents prior to 1950. 2. The petitioner’s carried the matter in appeal before the Scrutiny Committee who in-turn, rejected the appeal by filing reasons given by the Sub Divisional Officer, Degloor. The order reads thus :- “ The appellant Shri Subhash Shankarrao Govindwar at Post Degloor, Tq. Degloor, Dist. Nanded requested to the Sub Divisonal Officer, Degloor Dist. Nanded to issue a Tribe certificate to his daughter namely Ku. Supriya Subhashrao Govindwar as beloning to “Mannerwarlu” Scheduled Tribe, but the Sub Divisional Officer, Degloor Dist. Nanded refused to issue the same vide their order dated 16-09-2009 and therefore the Appellant filed an appeal before the Committee against the order of Sub Divisional Officer, Degloor, Dist. Nanded vide application dated 24-09-2009. The Scrutiny Committee deeply observed the order passed by the Sub 4 Divisional Officer, Degloor, Dist. Nanded and the documentary evidences submitted by the appellant along with the proposal and the Committee have come to the conclusion that, the Order passed by the Sub Divisional Officer,Degloor, Dist.Nanded is satisfactory and therefore the Committee is agreed with the decision taken by the Sub Divisional Officer, Degloor in the said case and Hence, the said appeal is rejected by the Committee.” 3. Having considered the rival submissions, in our opinion, neither the approach of the Sub Divisional Officer nor that of the Scrutiny Committee stand the test of judicial Scrutiny. The petitioner in support of her claim has submitted entire school record of the petitioner and of her father in which caste is shown as “Mannerwarlu”. The Tahasildar, the then competent authority on 11-07-1984 has issued caste certificate of “Mannerwarlu” Tribe certificate in favour of the father of the petitioner. The respondent No. 2-Committee has 5 upon verifying the Tribe claim in detail, validated the tribe claim of real cousin of petitioner from paternal side namely Nilesh Chandrakant Govindwar. It is pertinent to note that, the respondent No. 3 i.e. Sub Divisional Officer, Degloor itself has issued caste certificate in favour of said Nilesh. The Respondent No.2-Committee has upon verifying the Tribe claim in detail, validated the tribe claim of real cousin brother of petitioner from paternal side namely Shankar Gangadharao Govindwar. It is relevant to mention that, the present respondent No. 3 itself has issued caste certificate in favour of said Nilesh. On 13-07-2009, in accordance with Rule 4 Sub Rule 9 of the Schedule Tribes Rules 2003 framed under Maharashtra Caste Verification Act, 2000, concerned Circle Officer (Revenue Officer), after local inquiry, recommended for issuance of Caste certificate in favour of the petitioner. In spite of above facts, documents and evidence produced on record by the petitioner before the respondent No.3,the respondent No.3 rejected the application of the petitioner for getting caste certificate 6 of “Munnerwarlu” S.T. In our opinion, merely because the Head Master, Zilla Parishad School, Bhatagalli, has observed that, school admission extract register of the father of the applicant namely Govindwar Subhash Shankarrao, in the caste column the word “Mannerwarlu” is shown overwrite, cannot be ground to reject the application of the petitioner for issuance of provisional tribe certificate of “Mannerwarlu” S.T. in absence of proper inquiry in that behalf. The certificate is always subject to the validation by the Scrutiny Committee, and therefore, merely relying on observation of the Head Master, Zilla Parishad School, Bhatagalli, the respondent No. 3- Sub Divisional Officer, Degloor should not have rejected the application preferred by the petitioner for getting certificate of “Mannerwarlu” S.T. 4. As aforesaid, the petitioner has produced number of documents in support of her claim and also the report of the Revenue 7 Inspector is in favour of the petitioner. The respondent No. 3 has not considered each of the document submitted before him and refused to issue certificate in favour of the petitioner. In view of above, the Sub Divisional Officer could have issued the caste certificate / tribe certificate which would be subject to the verification of the caste scrutiny Committee. 5. The another ground on which the Sub Divisional Officer has rejected the request of the petitioner is that, the petitioner has failed to submit the “the claim of certificate Mannerwarlu (ST) documents prior to 1950”. In our opinion, there is no law which mandates that, only on the production of tribe documents prior to 1950 caste certificate can be issued to the incumbent. It would be ideal if the tribe documents prior to 1950 were to be produced by the petitioner in support of her tribe claim. that may have great probative value. But non production of such document does not mean that, the other documents which are produced by the petitioner can be completely discarded, which is 8 the approach of the opinion recorded by the Sub Divisional Officer. Accordingly, in our opinion, the view taken by the Sub Divisional Officer on both the counts cannot be sustained. In so far as Scrutiny Committee is concerned, it has merely agreed with the opinion of the Sub Divisional Officer without recording any finding of its own. The Scrutiny Committee has not even bothered to analyze the documents produced by the petitioner, though it was dealing with the statutory appeal preferred by the petitioner. The approach of the Scrutiny Committee to say the least, is perverse. 6. In the circumstances, both the orders passed by the Sub Divisional Officer as well as Scrutiny Committee are set aside and instead, the Sub Divisional Officer is directed to reconsider the application of the petitioners afresh on its own merits, in accordance with law. That be done expeditiously and in any case not later than eight weeks from the date of receipt of this order. 9 . Rule is made absolute on the terms indicated above. [ S.S. SHINDE, J ] [ A.M. KHANWILKAR, J ] SDM* WP1010.10/17-02-10.