Bombay High Court: In the present case, the petitioner filed the present petition being aggrieved by the order dated 17-09-2019 passed by the Scheduled Tribe Caste Certificate Scrutiny Committee, Amravati (Respondent 1), whereby her claim that she belonged to ‘Halba’ Scheduled Tribe was rejected. The Division Bench of Avinash G. Gharote and Abhay J. Mantri*, JJ., stated that the petitioner’s father was already granted the validity of belonging to the Scheduled Tribe ‘Halbi’, therefore, the petitioner could not belong to the Scheduled Tribe ‘Halba’. The Court held that she belonged to the Scheduled Tribe ‘Halbi’. The Court further held that ‘Halba’ and ‘Halbi’ were different Scheduled Tribes.
Background
The petitioner stated she belonged to the Halba’, Scheduled Tribe, which was notified as a scheduled tribe and the Sub-Divisional Officer, Achalpur had issued a Tribe certificate in her favour. The petitioner to pursue her education in Respondent 2 produced her Tribe certificate along with relevant documents for its verification, however, her tribe claim was rejected by Respondent 1 vide its order dated 15-07-2017. She challenged the said order before this Court and this Court, vide order dated 24-09-2018, quashed and set aside the order of invalidation of her claim and remanded the matter back to Respondent 1 for its fresh consideration as per law by protecting her admission in Respondent 2.
Respondent 1, pursuant to the order dated 24-09-2018, forwarded the petitioner’s proposal to the Vigilance Cell for a detailed enquiry, which submitted its report to Respondent 1, observing that some adverse entries, i.e., “Sali, Bunkar, Koshti, and Halbi”, were found against the petitioner’s tribe claim. After considering the Vigilance Cell report, explanation of the petitioner, and documents on record, Respondent 1 invalidated the petitioner’s tribe claim.
Counsel for the petitioner submitted that the petitioner had produced in all 9 documents, out of which 3 documents were of the pre-constitutional era from 26-04-1920 to September 1921 pertaining to her great-great-grandfather and cousin grandfather, wherein their caste had been recorded as “Halbi”, and those documents were the oldest one.
Analysis, Law, and Decision
The Court noted that neither the Vigilance Cell nor Respondent 1 disputed or denied the pre-constitutional era documents or entries therein as ‘Halbi’; and thus, the Court stated that there was no reason to discard those documents as the other entries found by the Vigilance Cell adverse to the said entries were subsequent. The Court also noted that the documents produced by the petitioner along with the Vigilance Cell report depicted that the petitioner’s ancestors were residents of Samraspura and not Raipura.
The Court referred to the sale deed of the petitioner’s great-grandfather, which mentioned that the petitioner’s great-grandfather belonged to the ‘Halbi’ caste and had sold his property to Gajanan Parasramji, a resident of Samraspura.
The Court relied on Adiwasi Thakur Jamat Swarakshan Samiti v. State of Maharashtra, 2023 SCC OnLine SC 326, wherein it was held that the entry in the oldest pre-constitutional documents had greater probative value than subsequent documents. The Court thus opined that Respondent 1 ought to have considered the oldest pre-constitutional documents while considering the tribe claim of the petitioner instead of discarding the said documents based on the subsequent adverse entries.
The Court opined that the finding of discarding the oldest document based on the subsequent document could not be sustained and the undisputed entry pertaining to the petitioner’s great-grandfather had more probative value. Therefore, The Court stated that it would not be proper to discard the same while considering the tribe claim of the petitioner.
The Court noted that the petitioner had produced the caste validity certificate of her father, issued by Respondent 1 and the said validity certificate had not been cancelled till date. The Court relied on Apoorva v. Divisional Caste Certificate Scrutiny Committee No. 1, 2010 SCC OnLine Bom 1053 and opined that Respondent 1 ought not to have refused the same status to the petitioner without assigning any cogent reason, but it was incumbent on the Respondent 1 to issue validity certificate in favour of the petitioner unless the Scrutiny Committee found that the validity certificate of the petitioner’s father had been obtained by fraud or issued without any jurisdiction. Thus, there was no reason for the Scrutiny Committee to discard the said validity certificate.
The Court thus held that the petitioner belonged to the Scheduled Tribe ‘Halbi’ and the petitioner had even demonstrated that she belonged to the ‘Halbi’ Scheduled Tribe, which was an entry at Sr.No.19 of the Constitutional Scheduled Tribe Order, 1950, in relation to the State of Maharashtra.
The Court noted that the tribe ‘Halba’ was a singular entry at S.No. 13 in Part IV of the Schedule to the Constitution (Scheduled Tribes) Order, 1950 and by way of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes Orders (Amendment) Act, 1956, Part IV of the Schedule for the State of Madhya Pradesh was amended by replacing entry No.13 ‘Halba’ with entry 13 ‘Halba or Halbi’. By the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes Orders (Amendment) Act, 1976, the Schedule—IX was amended by deleting the original Entry at S.No.13 and inserting Entry at S.No.19 as ‘Halba, Halbi’ for the State of Maharashtra, pursuant to the States Reorganization Act, 1956. Thus, Entry at S.No.19 in Schedule — IX of the Constitution (Scheduled Tribes) Order, 1950, stood amended as Entry No.19 ‘Halba, Halbi’.
The Court thus held that the tribes ‘Halba and Halbi’ were different Scheduled Tribes. The Court stated that the petitioner’s father was already granted the validity of belonging to the Scheduled Tribe ‘Halbi’, therefore, the petitioner could not claim to belong to the Scheduled Tribe ‘Halba’. Therefore, the Court rejected the petitioner’s claim of belonging to Scheduled Tribe ‘Halba’ and held that she belonged to the Scheduled Tribe ‘Halbi’.
The Court allowed the petition and quashed and set aside the impugned order dated 17-09-2019 passed by Scheduled Tribe Caste Certificate Scrutiny Committee.
[Gauri v. Scheduled Tribe Caste Certificate Scrutiny Committee, Writ Petition No. 7243 of 2019, decided on 27-01-2025]
*Judgment authored by: Justice Abhay J. Mantri
Advocates who appeared in this case:
For the Petitioner: Mohan Sudame, Senior Counsel with Ashwin Deshpande, Advocate for Petitioner.
For the Respondents: A.V. Palshikar, Assistant Government Pleader for Respondent 1.