IMPORTANT POINT
The Scrutiny Committee cannot invalidate tribe validity certificates of blood relatives without evidence of fraud or jurisdictional issues; valid certificates must be accepted to ensure consistency and fairness in caste claims.

JUDGMENT/ORDER

FIRDOSH P.POONIWALLA,J. - Heard.

2. RULE. Rule made returnable forthwith and with the consent of the parties heard finally at the admission stage.

3. The Petitioner is a student. The Petitioner has completed Diploma in Pharmacy and has participated in the admission process to direct Second Year of the full time Under Graduate Degree Course in Pharmacy for the Academic Year 2023-24. The Petitioner has participated in the said admission process initiated by the Government of Maharashtra through the State Common Entrance Test Cell, Maharashtra State, Mumbai. The Petitioner has secured admission in the aforesaid admission process from the ST reserved category and has to produce her Tribe Validity Certificate, failing which her admission would get automatically cancelled and she would be considered only under the open category.

4. By this Petition, the Petitioner challenges an Order dtd. 31/7/2023 passed by the Scheduled Tribe Certificate Scrutiny Committee, Nashik i.e Respondent No.1. ('impugned order') whereby Respondent No.1 invalidated the claim of the Petitioner that she belongs to the Koli Mahadev Scheduled Tribe. Further, by the impugned order, Respondent No.1 also cancelled the Tribe Certificate of Koli Mahadev Scheduled Tribe dtd. 12/12/2018 issued to the Petitioner.

5. In the Petition, the Petitioner has challenged the impugned order on various grounds, however, the main ground of challenge of the Petitioner is that Respondent No.1 committed a serious error in discarding the Validity Certificates issued in favour of the father and cousin uncle of the Petitioner. It is the case of the Petitioner that Respondent No.1 committed a serious error in attempting to suo moto review the correctness of the said Validity Certificates which were not challenged by anybody and which were occupying the field. It is the case of the Petitioner that Respondent No.1 has completely exceeded its jurisdiction by going into the correctness of the grant of the said Validity Certificates. It is also the case of the Petitioner that it is a settled legal position that Respondent No.1 has no such suo moto power of review. Further, since no case of fraud was even remotely established, Respondent No.1 ought to have relied upon the said two Validity Certificates of the father and the cousin uncle of the Petitioner.

6. In the impugned order, Respondent No.1 has not relied upon the Validity Certificates of the father of the Petitioner, namely, Mangilal Trimbak Dambale, on the ground that no enquiry was conducted by the Vigilance Cell before the said Validity Certificate was issued to the father of the Petitioner and also on the ground that the father of the Petitioner had obtained the said Validity Certificate by suppressing material facts of contra entries such as Hindu Koli, Koli, Hindu Maha Koli in the case of his blood relatives, by submitting incorrect and incomplete information before the then Scrutiny Committee and thereby misleading the then Scrutiny Committee. As far as the Validity Certificate of the cousin uncle of the Petitioner, namely, Bharat Genu Dambale, is concerned, the same also seems to have been rejected on the same grounds except that, from the impugned order, it seems that Respondent No.1 is not very clear as to whether any vigilance enquiry was conducted before the said Validity Certificate was issued since the file of Bharat Genu Dambale was not found in the record room.

7. In our view, Respondent No.1 wrongly refused to accept the Validity Certificates of the father and the cousin uncle of the Petitioner. It is well settled law that Respondent No.1 could not have sat in review of the said Validity Certificates unless it came to the conclusion that the Committee which scrutinized the same did not have jurisdiction or that the Validity Certificates were obtained by the committing fraud on that Committee. It is well settled that, in the absence of the aforesaid two conditions, if a candidate submits a Caste or Tribe Validity