1 IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT BOMBAY BENCH AT AURANGABAD. WRIT PETITION NO.3649 OF 2009 Kum. Ankita D/o Maroti Kalyankar, Age-minor, Occu.Education, R/o Sagroli, Tq. Biloli, District Nanded, Through Power of Attorney Holder Shri Gangadhar S/o Ganpatrao Kalyankar, Age : 39 years, Occu.Agri., R/o Biloli, Tq. Biloli, District Nanded ..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 Dy. Director (R), Aurangabad 3. The Sub Divisional Officer, Degloor, District Nanded ..RESPONDENTS Mr S.M. Vibhute, Advocate for the petitioner; Mr K.J. Ghute Patil, AGP for respondents no.1 & 3; Mr M.S. Deshmukh, Advocate for respondent no.2. 2 CORAM: P.V. HARDAS AND R.K.DESHPANDE, JJ. DATE : 1ST JULY, 2009 ORAL JUDGMENT: [PER P.V. HARDAS, J.] Rule. Rule made returnable forthwith. With the consent of learned Counsel for the parties this petition is heard finally at the stage of admission. 2. Since the petitioner was desirous of obtaining a certificate as belonging to “Koli Mahadev” - Scheduled Tribe, the petitioner submitted an application before the Sub-Divisional Officer, Degloor. The petitioner heavily relied upon the validity certificate granted to her father as well as the validity certificate granted to her uncle. Reliance is also placed by the petitioner on the validity granted to her aunt. The Sub-Divisional Officer has rejected the application of the petitioner on the ground that in the admission extract of the father of the petitioner the caste which was recorded was “Hindu Koli” and, therefore, was contrary to the claim set up by the petitioner. The Sub-Divisional Officer also relied upon the judgment of the Division Bench of this Court in which it was held that merely because one of the family members had been granted validity certificate it would not be a foundation for granting validity certificate to the other members. Obviously, the aforesaid observations were made in respect of the proceedings before the Scrutiny Committee. In the present case since the father of the petitioner, uncle of the 3 petitioner and aunt of the petitioner have been granted validity certificates, according to us, a caste certificate ought to have been granted to the petitioner. 3. In the light of that, therefore, this petition is allowed and impugned orders of the Sub-Divisional Officer and the Scrutiny Committee in appeal are hereby quashed and set aside. We direct the Sub- Divisional Officer to issue caste certificate to the petitioner as belonging to “Koli Mahadev” - Scheduled Tribe. 4. Rule made absolute on the above terms with no order as to costs. [ R.K. DESHPANDE, J ] [ P.V. HARDAS, J ] amj/wp3649.09 4