(1) wp10914-10 IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT BOMBAY BENCH AT AURANGABAD WRIT PETITION NO. 10914 OF 2010 Gangadhar s/o Maroti Rautwad, R/o Mangnali, Tq. Dharmabad, District Nanded, through father and natural guardian Shri Maroti s/o Sambhanna Rautwad. PETITIONER VERSUS 1. The State of Maharashtra, through Secretary, Tribal Development Department, Mantralaya, Mumbai. 2. The Scheduled Tribe Caste Certificate Verification Committee, Aurangabad, through its Dy. Director (R), Aurangabad 3. The Sub-Divisional Officer, Degloor, Dist. Nanded RESPONDENTS .... Mr. S.M. Vibhute, advocate for the petitioner. Mrs. A.V. Gondhalekar,A.G.P.for the respondent/State. Mr. R.P. Phatke, Standing Counsel for respondent No.2. .... CORAM : D.B. BHOSALE & M.T. JOSHI, JJ. DATED : 20th APRIL, 2011 (2) wp10914-10 ORAL ORDER (PER - M.T. JOSHI,J.) : 1. Rule. Rule made returnable forthwith and by consent of learned counsel for the parties, the petition is taken up for final hearing. 2. The petitioner is challenging the order passed by respondent No. 3 - Sub Divisional Officer, Degloor, rejecting his application for grant of caste/tribe certificate and subsequent rejection of appeal by respondent No. 2. 3. The petitioner claims to be belonging to "Mannerwarlu" Scheduled Tribe. He placed 14 documents before respondent No. 3, including the caste certificates of his relations. The learned Sub Divisional Officer held that all the documents are recent documents and no Pre-1950 revenue/non-revenue document was submitted and, therefore, the application was rejected. In appeal, respondent No. 2 has remarked that it has deeply observed the order passed by the Sub-Divisional Officer and accordingly, rejected the appeal. (3) wp10914-10 4. In the case of "Kum. Ankita Anup Rathor vs. State of Maharashtra & others" 2009 (2) ALL MR 313, it has been held that at the stage of issuance of caste/tribe certificate, only prima facie material is required to be scrutinized, because even such caste/tribe certificate is required to be scrutinized at the stage of issuance of validity certificate. The same ratio is made applicable in writ petition No. 1600/2011, vide order dated 9th March, 2011. In view of this, the present writ petition deserves to be allowed. Rule is made absolute in following terms. "The impugned order dated 25-01-2010, passed by respondent No. 3 - Sub Divisional Officer as well as the order dated 29-04-2010, passed by respondent No.2, stand set aside. Respondent No. 2 shall issue caste/tribe certificate to the petitioner in the prescribed form within a period of three weeks from today. Such certificate shall be subject to its validation by the Caste/Tribe (4) wp10914-10 Scrutiny Committee. It is made clear that the observations made in this order shall not influence the Scrutiny Committee at stage of caste/tribe validation. It would be open for the Scrutiny Committee to examine the case of the petitioner on its merits. No costs." [M.T. JOSHI, J.] [D.B. BHOSALE, J.] NPJ/wp10914-10