To prove the charge of conspiracy it is necessary to establish that there was an agreement between the parties for doing an unlawful act

 

The petitioner claims to belonging to “Thakur” Scheduled Tribe, which is an entry at Sr.No.44 of the Constitution (Scheduled Tribes) Order, 1950. The Sub-Divisional Officer, Mangrulpir, District-Amravati has issued caste certificate dated 12.12.2018 of ‘Thakur Scheduled Tribe’ in favour of the petitioner. The petitioner’s claim was forwarded for verification and issuance of validity to respondent-committee. The petitioner submitted all necessary documents including documents prior to year 1950. After forwarding the claim of the petitioner to vigilance cell for necessary enquiry, show cause notice enclosing vigilance cell report was served to the petitioner and the petitioner filed his submission/reply to the said show cause notice. Despite submission of all necessary documents and written submission to show cause notice, the respondent-committee, without considering the law laid down by the Hon’ble Apex Court and without considering the documents, invalidated the claim of the petitioner, as belong to “Thakur” Scheduled Tribe. The committee rejected the caste claim of the petitioner mainly on the ground that area restrictions, failure in affinity test and abnormal rise in the population after removal of area restriction.

Procedural History

Contentions made

Appellant- The committee failed to appreciate probative value of the pre-constitutional documents showing entry of ‘Thakur’ caste, those are 1914 upto 1950. There is no dispute about family tree. The petitioner has also produced other validity certificate issued in the name of his blood relative. Reliance was placed on the judgment of this Court in the case of Abhishek s/o Vijay Ingle vs Vice Chairman/Jt. Commissioner, Scheduled Tribe Caste Certificate Scrutiny Committee, Amravati, Anand vs Committee for Scrutiny and Verification of Tribe Claims & Ors, Jaywant Dilip Pawar vs State of Maharashtra & Ors, Prakesh s/o Shrawan Deore vs Scheduled Tribe Certificate Scrutiny Committee, Nashik & Ors and Ku. Pallavi d/o Shri Prakashrao Pawar vs. Scheduled Tribe Caste Certificate Scrutiny Committee, Amravati. Committee failed to appreciate relevant documents and gave importance to irrelevant consideration.

 Respondent- The order passed by the committee is fully justified and committee has given detailed reason for invalidating the claim of the petitioner. Thus, no interference is called for under Article 226 of the Constitution of India.

Observations of the Court

The Bench observed that:

“Since the oldest undisputed documents produced by the petitioner relates back to 2014 and three more other documents of pre-constitutional years having probative value, the committee was not justified in invalidating the claim of the petitioner applying affinity test and area restriction.”

Judgment 

The petition was allowed and the following order was passed:

• The order dated 29.10.2020 passed by the Scrutiny Committee was set aside.
• It was declared that the petitioner belongs to ‘Thakur’ Scheduled Tribe which is Entry No.44 in the Constitution (Scheduled Tribes) Order, 1950.
• The Scrutiny Committee shall issue validity certificate to the petitioner within a period of four weeks from today.
• The petitioner was free to rely upon the copy of this judgment to indicate that his claim for grant of validity certificate of belonging to ‘Thakur’ Scheduled Tribe has been accepted.

Case Name: Aniket s/o Dilip Lokhande vs Schedule Tribe Caste Certificate Scrutiny Committee

Citation: WRIT PETITION NO.5649 OF 2021

Bench: Justice Smt. M.S. Jawalkar, Justice A.S. Chandurkar

Decided on: 28^th January 2022 

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