The burden of proof lies on the claimant to prove his caste claim.

( 1 ) RECORD and proceedings of respondent No. 4 - Scrutiny Committee was called and petitioner has inspected the same. Parties have nothing to add. Hence this Petition along with other petitions are taken up for final hearing. Hence Rule. Rule is made returnable forthwith in all petitions and is heard by consent.

( 2 ) THE petitioner, who is resident of nagpur, consented the election to the Office of the Councilor of Municipal Corporation of nagpur city from a constituency reserved for scheduled Tribes and has been elected.

( 3 ) THE petitioner claimed that he belongs to "halba" included in the list of scheduled Tribes, as modified by Notification no. SRO - 510 dated 6th September, 1950 published in Gazette of India, Extraordinary 1950, Part II. As per Section 9-AA of the City of Nagpur Municipal Corporation Act, the petitioner was under an obligation to get his caste claim verified within three months from the date of election, else the seat was to fall vacant. The petitioner had applied for verification of his tribe claim to the Respondent no. 4 - Committee, under the provisions of the maharashtra Scheduled Castes, Scheduled tribes, De-notified Tribes (Vimukta Jatis), nomadic Tribes, Other Backward Classes and special Backward Category (Regulation of issuance and Verification of) Caste Certificate act, 2000 (for short "the Act of 2000") and rules made thereunder, namely, Maharashtra scheduled Tribes (Regulation of Issuance and verification of) Certificate Rules, 2003 (in short, "the Rules of 2003" ).

( 4 ) SINCE his caste claim could not be verified in time, in order to seek protection, the petitioner filed a Petition being Writ Petition no. 1985/2007 and in the background of grant of protection, it seems that the petitioner made a statement before the Court that he would cooperate with the expeditious disposal, the committee took up the caste scrutiny for expeditious hearing. This Court also observed while granting protection to petitioner that if petitioner does not co-operate with the committee, this be brought to the notice of the court.

( 5 ) THE petitioner submitted before the Scrutiny Committee his application dated 30-12-2006 and certain documents in support of his tribe claim. The Committee scrutinized petitioner's application on 16-1-2007 and referred the case for opinion to the Vigilance cell.

( 6 ) THE Vigilance Cell conducted the inquiry by visiting home and other places and collected the documents which appeared to the cell to be relevant in view of statements recorded and information collected by them. The Research Officer gave his opinion on the report of Vigilance Cell. The Vigilance Cell furnished its report dated 22-2-2007 to the scrutiny Committee.

( 7 ) THE Scrutiny Committee considered the report of the Vigilance Cell dated 22-2-2007 and found that it was not favourable to the petitioner and the Committee, therefore, decided to serve its copy with show cause notice by Committee's order dated 6-3-2007.

( 8 ) IN the meantime, on 2-3-2007 petitioner's Advocate furnished to the committee common letters in seven cases of corporators submitting Vakalat-nama, one amongst those was claim of present petitioner.

( 9 ) THE petitioner's Advocate, then, submitted on 9-3-2007, a common letter dated 8-3-2007 and furnishing a photo-copy of detailed affidavit of the candidate sworn before executive Magistrate on 23-2-2007 each of seven cases, and four documents referred to therein, which learned Advocate has described and are quoted ad-verbatim, namely :-

1) Xerox copy of Linguistic Survey of India vol. VIII - Indo Aryan Family - Southern group - complied and edited by G. A. Grierson (Vol:90 - Halbi - Dist. Ellichpur); with its translation into English language; 2) Janganana Ahwalachya Anushangyane halbancha Vichar;

3) Swatantra Purviche Halbanchya sandarbhatill Purave; (Evidence of Halba prior to independence ). 4) Government Resolution dated 10th July, 1998. This letter contains a handwritten post-script