Madras High Court: In a writ petition against the order passed by the District Level Vigilance Committee (‘DLVC’), wherein it cancelled the community certificate of the petitioner, the division bench of S.M. Subramaniam and V. Lakshminarayanan, JJ. while quashing the impugned order, directed DLVC to go through the documents produced by the petitioner, the vigilance report, or any other report produced by the parties and make a categorical finding both factually and legally and thereafter, pass a reasoned order for arriving at a conclusion.
Background:
The petitioner claimed that she belongs to “Kuravan” community, which is a scheduled caste community. Producing the community certificate, the petitioner participated in the process of local body elections and got elected as President of G. Kalluppatti Panchayat in the year 2019. The rival candidate, who was unsuccessful in the election process, filed a complaint against the petitioner that she had submitted a false community certificate and contested in the election. Therefore, the community certificate is to be cancelled and consequentially, actions are to be initiated to remove her from the post of President. The DLVC headed by the District Collector, conducted an enquiry based on the complaint and cancelled the community certificate granted in favour of the petitioner.
Thereafter, the petitioner filed a writ petition, wherein the Court while remanding the matter, stated that the DLVC shall obtain a report from the Vigilance Cell and based on the report, by following the procedures prescribed in the Government Order, dispose of the complaint afresh within a period of twelve weeks. The said exercise was done by the DLVC, and the impugned order has been passed.
After perusing the order, the Court noted that the DLVC has considered the report of the Vigilance Cell and followed the procedures as contemplated under the Government Orders as directed by the Division Bench of this Court. The missing part of the impugned order is the discussions about the documents and the findings in the Vigilance Cell report and appreciation of the evidence produced before the Committee.
The Court said that grant of community certificate or cancellation of community certificate would have a larger repercussion and will affect the future generation of the family concerned. Therefore, the authorities competent while conducting an enquiry are expected to be cautious and each document produced by the parties is to be considered and a finding is to be made to remove any ambiguity in respect of the decision to be taken either to grant or cancel the community certificate. Any ambiguity would result in denial of basic rights to the person who seeks community certificate from the authorities.
The Court noted that, in the present case, the petitioner produced 62 documents to establish her case before the DLVC. However, none of those documents are referred to in the impugned order nor any findings are recorded appreciating or rejecting the evidence for the purpose of forming final opinion to cancel the community certificate issued in favour of the writ petitioner.
The Court said that though the Anthropologist voluntarily submitted a report, the same has not even referred or considered in the impugned order. Since it is a voluntary report, the same need not be neglected, unless the Committee has gone into the report and found that there is no merit to such a voluntary report. When there are reports in favour and against the petitioner, both the reports are to be considered and the findings.
Since the order will affect the right of the petitioner and as she had already been elected for the post of President in local body elections, the Court opined that the matter is to be again remanded.
The Bench further said that though this Court normally would not resort to any remedy of remanding the matter, this case is an exception, wherein, the Committee has to go into the documents produced by the petitioner and the vigilance report, or any other report produced by the parties and make a categorical finding both factually and legally and thereafter, pass a reasoned order for arriving at a conclusion.
Thus, the Court directed the DLVC to complete this exercise within a period of 4 weeks from the date of receipt of a copy of this order.
[P. Maheswari v Secretary to Government, 2023 SCC OnLine Mad 7755, Order dated 02-11-2023]
Advocates who appeared in this case :
For Petitioner: Senior Advocate R.Gandhi
For Respondent: Additional Advocate General Veerakathiravan, Advocate Additional Government Pleader N. Satheesh Kumar, Advocate G. Thalaimutharasu
