FARAD CONTINUATION SHEET NO. IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT BOMBAY BENCH AT AURANGABAD WRIT PETITION NO. 5052 OF 2011 " Gajanan s/o. Arjun Mukade Vs. The State of Maharashtra and others." Office Notes, Office Memoranda of Coram appearances, Court's Orders Court's or Judge's orders or directions and Registrar's orders. 1 Mr. Gajanan K. Kshirsagar, Advocate for petitioner. Mrs. A.V. Gondhalekar, Assistant Govt. Pleader for respondent Nos. 1,3 and 4. Mr. R.P. Phatke, Advocate for respondent No.2. CORAM :- D.B. BHOSALE & S.B. DESHMUKH, JJ. DATE :- 12TH JULY, 2011. PER COURT :- 1] In this petition, the petitioner has made the following prayers :- “[B] By issuing appropriate writ, order or direction in like nature, the respondent Nos. 3 and 4 may kindly be directed to provide and accept the preference/admission form of the petitioner to the medical degree course from the S.T. Reserve category without submission of caste validity certificate and for that purpose issue necessary orders. [C] By issuing appropriate writ, order or direction in like nature, the respondent No.2 Scrutiny Committee may kindly be directed to decide the tribe claim of the petitioner as Andh and for that purpose issue necessary orders. FARAD CONTINUATION SHEET NO. IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT BOMBAY BENCH AT AURANGABAD WRIT PETITION NO. 5052 OF 2011 " Gajanan s/o. Arjun Mukade Vs. The State of Maharashtra and others." Office Notes, Office Memoranda of Coram appearances, Court's Orders Court's or Judge's orders or directions and Registrar's orders. 2 2] The petitioner claims that he belongs to “Andh” community which is notified and recognized as scheduled tribe. The petitioner passed HSC examination in February 2011. He appeared for MHT-CET examination 2011. . Thereafter, the petitioner claims that he submitted his proposal/application to the respondent scrutiny committee for seeking caste validity certificate, on 7th July,2011. There is no dispute that he submitted his proposal at the dispatch counter in the office of the scrutiny committee. In view thereof, learned counsel for the petitioner submits that directions be issued to respondent Nos. 3 and 4, to provide and accept his preference/admission form to the health science courses from ST category, without submission of caste validity certificate. 3] Mr. Phatke, learned counsel for the Scrutiny Committee, on instructions, submits that that the application/proposal of the petitioner is not traceable in their office. 4] This court has consistently taken a view that no discrimination between the candidates belonging to Scheduled Tribe and to other backward class categories can be made, so far as submission of caste validity certificate is concerned. This FARAD CONTINUATION SHEET NO. IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT BOMBAY BENCH AT AURANGABAD WRIT PETITION NO. 5052 OF 2011 " Gajanan s/o. Arjun Mukade Vs. The State of Maharashtra and others." Office Notes, Office Memoranda of Coram appearances, Court's Orders Court's or Judge's orders or directions and Registrar's orders. 3 court, in a group of 4 writ petitions considered this aspect and vide judgment dated 7th July, 2011, allowed those petitions and directed the concerned respondents to accept the preference/admission forms of the petitioners to the health science courses, in view of the fact that they had submitted their caste certificates to the scrutiny committee for seeking validity certificates, within time. 5] Admittedly, the petitioner tendered his application for seeking validity certificate at the dispatch counter and obtained acknowledgment from the inward-outward clerk. Whether delivery/tender of the application, as contemplated under Rule 12 of the Maharashtra Scheduled Tribes (Regulation of Issuance and Verification of) Certificate Rules, (for short, “the Rules”) can be treated as valid submission of the application, was the question under consideration before this court today, in Writ Petition No. 5061/2011. After considering the relevant provisions of the rules and overall facts and circumstances of the case, in the order, we have observed thus :- “It is thus clear that merely tendering/delivering an application at the dispatch counter, where inward- outward clerk receives all the correspondence addressed to the committee, does not amount to FARAD CONTINUATION SHEET NO. IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT BOMBAY BENCH AT AURANGABAD WRIT PETITION NO. 5052 OF 2011 " Gajanan s/o. Arjun Mukade Vs. The State of Maharashtra and others." Office Notes, Office Memoranda of Coram appearances, Court's Orders Court's or Judge's orders or directions and Registrar's orders. 4 tendering an application to the scrutiny committee or a person authorized by it as contemplated by Rule 12(1) of the Rules. In other words the acknowledgment given by dispatch/inward outward clerk cannot be treated as an acknowledment contemplated by sub-rule (1) or Rule 12 of the receipt of the application for seeking validity certificate. In view thereof, the application tendered by the petitioner in the present case, at the dispatch counter of the committee, cannot be stated to be an application tendered by him, as contemplated by sub- rule (1) of Rule 12 and/or the acknowledgment given by the dispatch clerk cannot be accepted as proof of submission of the application to the scrutiny committee. We would like to make reference to one of the petitions which we heard today, namely, writ petition No. 5056/2011. In this writ petition also, the application for validity of caste was submitted to the scrutiny committee on 2/7/2011. The petitioner therein placed on record, the certificate/receipt issued by the concerned scrutiny committee of having accepted the said form in the manner provided under sub-rule (1) of Rule 12 of the Rules. When we asked FARAD CONTINUATION SHEET NO. IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT BOMBAY BENCH AT AURANGABAD WRIT PETITION NO. 5052 OF 2011 " Gajanan s/o. Arjun Mukade Vs. The State of Maharashtra and others." Office Notes, Office Memoranda of Coram appearances, Court's Orders Court's or Judge's orders or directions and Registrar's orders. 5 for such certificate/receipt in the present writ petition to the learned counsel for the petitioner, he could not and did not produce such certificates issued by the scrutiny committee and he placed reliance only on the endorsement made by the dispatch/inward outward clerk having tendered the application at the dispatch counter. Such tendering of the application, in any case, cannot be accepted as proof of submission of the application to the scrutiny committee, particularly when, it is submitted by the candidate/applicant, directly to the scrutiny committee. We were prepared to accept even direct presentation of the application to the scrutiny committee and we have done so, in 1 or 2 other matters, after having satisfied that submission of the application was in the manner provided under sub- rule (1) of Rule 12 of the Rules. 6] We have perused the proposal/application submitted by the petitioner ( Exhibit C to the writ petition) which shows that the application was tendered/delivered at the dispatch counter to the inward-outward clerk in the office of the scrutiny committee. There is nothing on record to show, nor there is any averment made in the writ petition that after the application for seeking validity certificate was tendered/delivered at the dispatch FARAD CONTINUATION SHEET NO. IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT BOMBAY BENCH AT AURANGABAD WRIT PETITION NO. 5052 OF 2011 " Gajanan s/o. Arjun Mukade Vs. The State of Maharashtra and others." Office Notes, Office Memoranda of Coram appearances, Court's Orders Court's or Judge's orders or directions and Registrar's orders. 6 counter, it was scrutinized and registered by the committee as contemplated by Rule 12 of the Rules. In view thereof, and for the reasons recorded in aforesaid order in W.P. No.5061/2011, prayer clause (B) in the writ petition is rejected. 7] In so far as prayer clause (C) is concerned, if the application/proposal of the petitioner is registered and numbered, same may be considered and decided expeditiously, to enable the petitioner to participate in the admission process atleast in the next academic year. 8] Writ petition is accordingly disposed of. [S.B. DESHMUKH,J.] [D.B. BHOSALE, J.] grt/-