1 IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT BOMBAY BENCH AT AURANGABAD. WRIT PETITION NO. 1696 OF 2010. Umakant S/o Vyankat Adatrao Age 18 years, Occu. Education, R/o At Post Karnjkheda, Tq. & Dist. Osmanabad. .. 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, Osmanabad, Tq. Osmanabad, Dist. Osmanabad. .. RESPONDENTS. ... Shri P.V. Jadhavar, Advocate for Petitioner. Shri V.D. Godbharle, Assistant Government Pleader, for respondent Nos. 1 to 3. CORAM : A.M. KHANWILKAR AND S.S. SHINDE, JJ. DATE : 3rd MARCH, 2010. PER COURT: (S.S. Shinde,J.) 2 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 22-09-2009 passed by the respondent No. 2 - Committee, Aurangabad, thereby confirming the order of the Respondent No. 3 i.e. Sub Divisional Officer, Osmanabad, Dist. Osmanabad on 12-06-2009. The Sub Divisional Officer rejected the application preferred by the petitioner for getting certificate of “Koli Mahadeo” Scheduled Tribe. The Sub Divisional Officer while rejecting the said application has recorded twp reasons, firstly, Validation Tribe Certificate of uncle is of recent origin and the evidence of documents on the basis of which, the said certificate was issued, is not available in the file and therefore, claim of the petitioner can not be accepted. Secondly, the petitioner has not submitted any evidence in the nature of old revenue record before the competent 3 authority in support of his Tribe claim of ‘Koli Mahadeo’ Scheduled Tribe. Thirdly, the petitioner has not produced the Tribe certificate of near relatives / blood relatives like uncle, grand father and aunt. The documents produced by the petitioner are of recent origin and, therefore, evidence produced is not satisfactory so as to issue Tribe certificate. 2. The petitioner carried the matter in appeal before the Scrutiny Committee who in-turn, rejected the appeal by following reasons given by the Sub Divisional Officer, Degloor. The order reads thus :- “ The appellant Shree Umakant Venkat Adatrao at Post Karajkheda, Tq. Osmanabad, Dist. Osmanabad requested to the Sub Divisional Officer, Osmanabad Dist. Osmanabad to issue a Tribe certificate beloning to “Mahadev Koli” Scheduled Tribe, but the Sub Divisional Officer, Osmanabad Dist. Osmanabad refused to issue the same vide their order dated 12-06-2009 and therefore the Appellant filed an appeal before the Committee against the order of Sub Divisional Officer, Osmanabad, Dist. Osmanabad vide application dated 4 18-07-2009. The Scrutiny Committee deeply observed the order passed by the Sub Divisional Officer, Osmanabad, Dist. Osmanabad 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,Osmanabad, Dist.Osmanabad is satisfactory and therefore the Committee is agreed with the decision taken by the Sub Divisional Officer, Osmanabad in the said case and Hence, the said appeal is rejected by the Committee.” 3. The learned counsel appearing for the respondent No. 2 Committee and the learned Assistant Government Pleader appearing for respondent No. 3 vehemently opposed the petition and submitted that, the authority as well as Scrutiny Committee properly appreciated the documents on record and then only the impugned orders are passed and therefore, this Court may not interfere in Writ Jurisdiction. 4. Having considered the rival submissions of the parties, in our opinion, neither the 5 approach of the Sub Divisional Officer nor that of the Scrutiny Committee stand the test of judicial Scrutiny. The petitioner in support of his claim has submitted his entire school record, in which caste is shown as “Koli Mahadeo”. The respondent No. 2-Committee has upon verifying the Tribe claim in detail, validated the tribe claim of real uncle of petitioner from paternal side namely Bharat Bhujangrao Adatrao. The Respondent No.2-Committee upon verifying the Tribe claim in detail, validated the tribe claim of real cousin brother of petitioner from paternal side namely Lalasaheb Limbraj Adatrao. The school record of the cousin grand father of the petitioner mentions his caste as ‘Mahadeo Koli’ caste is mentioned In spite of above documents and evidence produced on record by the petitioner before the respondent No.3,the respondent No.3 has rejected the application of the petitioner for getting Tribe certificate of “Mahadeo Koli” Scheduled Tribe. 6 5. As aforesaid, the petitioner has produced number of documents in support of his claim. 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. 6. 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 old revenue record showing entry as ‘Mahadeo Koli’ (ST). In our opinion, there is no law which mandates that, only on the production of old documents Tribe 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 his tribe claim, which may have great probative value. But non production of such document does not mean that the other documents can be completely discarded, 7 which is the opinion recorded by the Sub Divisional Officer. Accordingly, in our opinion, the view taken by the Sub divisional Officer on above 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. 7. In the afore stated back ground, we quash and set aside the order passed by the Sub Divisional Officer, Osmanabad as well as respondent No.2-Committee and direct the Sub Divisional Officer, Osmanabad to issue provisional tribe certificate belonging to ‘Koli Mahadev-Scheduled Tribe’ in favour of the present petitioner within two weeks from today. It is needless to mention that, the said caste 8 certificate will be subject to validation by the respondent No.2-Committee. Rule is made absolute to the above extent. Writ Petition is allowed and disposed of accordingly. . Rule is made absolute on the above terms. [ S.S. SHINDE ] [ A.M. KHANWILKAR, ] JUDGE JUDGE SDM* WP1696.10/040310