1 IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT BOMBAY BENCH AT AURANGABAD. WRIT PETITION NO. 1123 OF 2010. Sandeep S/o Ulhas Kongalwar, Age 13 years, Occu. Education, through its natural guardian i.e. father Shri Ulhas Iranna Kongalwar, Age 40 years, Occu. Service, R/o Degloor, Tq. Degloor, Dist. Nanded .. PETITIONER. VERSUS 1) The Sub Divisional Officer, Degloor, Tq. Degloor, Dist. Nanded. 2) Scheduled Tribe Certificate, Scrutiny Committee, Aurangabad Division, Aurangabad through its Member Secretary . RESPONDENTS. ... Shri S.S. Phatale, Advocate for Petitioner. Smt. A.V. Gondhalekar, Assistant Government Pleader, for respondent No. 1. Shri U.S. Malte, Advocate for respondent No. 2. WITH WRIT PETITION No. 1125 OF 2010 Anil S/o Ulhas Kongalwar, Age 16 years, Occu. Education, through its natural guardian i.e. father Shri Ulhas Iranna Kongalwar, Age 40 years, Occu. Service, R/o Degloor, Tq. Degloor, Dist. Nanded .. PETITIONER. VERSUS 1) The Sub Divisional Officer, 2 Degloor, Tq. Degloor, Dist. Nanded. 2) Scheduled Tribe Certificate, Scrutiny Committee, Aurangabad Division, Aurangabad through its Member Secretary . RESPONDENTS. ... Shri S.S. Phatale, Advocate for Petitioner. Shri R.P. Phatke, Additional Government Pleader, for respondent Nos. 1 & 2. CORAM : A.M. KHANWILKAR AND S.S. SHINDE, JJ. DATE : 18th FEBRUARY 2010. PER COURT: (S.S. Shinde,J.) 1. Heard Learned Counsel appearing for the respective parties. Rule, returnable forthwith. With the consent of the parties, heard finally at the stage of admission. These Writ Petitions take exception to the decision dated 22-02-2009 passed by the respondent No. 2 i.e. The Scheduled Tribe Caste Verification Committee, Aurangabad, thereby confirming the order of the Respondent No. 1 i.e. Sub Divisional Officer, Degloor, Dist. Nanded. The Sub Divisional Officer rejected the 3 application preferred by the petitioner for issuing certificate of “Mannerwarlu” Scheduled Tribe. The Sub Divisional Officer rejected the application of petitioners only on the ground that in the Census Register of National People 1951, wherein the caste of relative is shown as ‘Munurwad’. 2. The petitioners carried the matter in appeal before the Scrutiny Committee who in-turn, rejected the appeal, thereby confirming the order passed by the Sub Divisional Officer, Degloor. The order reads thus :- “ The appellant Shree Kongalwar Sandeep Ualhas at Post Degloor, Tq. Degloor, Dist. Nanded requested to the Sub Divisonal Officer, Degloor Dist. Nanded to issue a Tribe certificate belonging beloning to “Mannerwarlu” Scheduled Tribe, but the Sub Divisional Officer, Degloor Dist. Nanded refused to issue the same vide their order dated 09-07-2009 and therefore the Appellant filed an appeal before the Committee against the order of Sub Divisional Officer, Degloor, Dist. Nanded vide application dated 30-07-2009. The Scrutiny Committee deeply 4 observed the order passed by the Sub 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.” Even in the case of petitioner in Writ Petition No. 1125/2010, the Committee has passed the same order. 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 petitioners in support of their claims have 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 18-01-1991 has issued 5 Tribe certificate of “Mannerwarlu” in favour of the father of the petitioner. The respondent No. 2-Committee upon verifying the Tribe claim in detail, validated the tribe claim of real cousin uncle of the petitioners from paternal side namely Balaji Masnaji Kongalwar. On persual of the order passed by the Sub Divisional Officer, Degloor, it appears that, relying on the report of the Tahasildar, Degloor, the Sub Divisional Officer has observed that in Census Register of National people, 1951, the caste of the relatives of the petitioners are shown as ‘Munurwad’. In fact the Sub Divisional Officer has not referred the name of any of the relatives of the petitioners whose caste is shown as ‘Munurwad’ in said register. Therefore, in our opinion, the approach of Sub Divisional Officer, to reject the application of the petitioners for caste claim, by general observations is casual and can not be countenanced. 4. As aforesaid, the petitioners have 6 produced number of documents in support of their claim. The respondent No. 1 has not considered each of the document submitted before him and refused to issue certificate in favour of the petitioners. In view of above, the Sub Divisional Officer ought to have issued the caste certificate / tribe certificate which would be subject to the verification of the caste scrutiny Committee. 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 petitioners, though it was dealing with the statutory appeal preferred by the petitioner. The approach of the Scrutiny Committee to say the least, is perverse. 5. In the circumstances, both the orders 7 passed by the Sub Divisional Officer as well as Scrutiny Committee are set aside and instead, the Sub Divisional Officer is directed to issue provisional Tribe certificate belonging to “ Mannerwarlu’ Scheduled Tribe in favour of the petitioners within one month from today. It is needless to mention that, the said 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. [ S.S. SHINDE, J ] [ A.M. KHANWILKAR, J ] SDM* WP2972.09/18-02-10