Social status certificate – Scheduled Tribe Certificate – Caste claim – Confiscation and invalidation – Appellant-student became eligible to medical admission on basis of caste claim of belonging to Koli Mahadev tribe, however his caste certificate, had not been validated till then – Appellant filed writ petition seeking direction for scrutinizing his Caste Certificate – During the pendency, the Scrutiny Committee invalidated the claim of the appellant and his father disbelieving various documents placed on record-School Admission and Leaving Extract of the appellant’s grandfather from the year 1943, the school records of the appellant’s father and appellant’s uncle, and their certificates were cancelled and impounded by the Scrutiny Committee – Appellant then amended the writ petition challenging the order passed by the Scrutiny Committee confiscating and invalidating the Caste Certificate of the appellant and his father for the Scheduled Tribe – High Court dismissed the petition – Sustainability: Held: Appellant belongs to the Koli Mahadev Tribe – Words Koli Mahadev written in the entry are in the same ink and in the same handwriting, thus, no scope for interpolation in the said entry – On the basis of this pre-Independence entry, the school records of the appellant’s father and his uncle also show the caste as Koli Mahadev – In view of the pre-Independence document which certifies that the appellant’s grandfather to be belonging to Koli Mahadev Tribe, a greater probative value ought to have been given to the said document, however, on the basis of presumptions and assumptions, the said document was disbelieved – As regards the affinity test, with the change in times, migration and modernisation, the joining of people from the tribal population in the mainstream of the society, the fact that they are not in a position to recollect the anthropological and ethnological traits, deity, rituals, customs, mode of marriage, death ceremonies, method of burial, etc., of their tribe cannot be solely a ground ipso facto to deny the said claim – Affinity test is not a litmus test to decide the caste claim and is not an essential part in the process of determination of correctness of a caste or tribe claim in every case – Thus, the order of the Scrutiny Committee invalidating the appellant’s caste claim as well as the order of High Court not sustainable in law – Order passed by the High Court quashed and set aside – Scrutiny Committee to issue Caste Validity Certificate to the appellant. [Paras 10-17]
As published in the Supreme Court Reports, Supreme Court of India. Headnotes prepared by: Nidhi Jain. Text from the Indian Supreme Court Judgments open data set (Dattam Labs), CC BY 4.0.
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