The court emphasized the need for a fair consideration of the petitioner's claim to belong to the scheduled caste based on relevant certificates, disregarding technicalities.

The petitioner in this application seeks a direction to the concerned authorities to treat him as a candidate belonging to the reserved category for the scheduled castes.

2. The petitioner has applied for appearing in the Combined Medical Entrance Test, 1996. He has been issued an admit card to appear in the examination (copy at annexure 5). In the admit card, he has been shown to belong to the general category and not to the reserved category for the scheduled castes as claimed by him.

3. It is not in dispute that the petitioner along with his application form had submitted a caste certificate issued by the Sub-divisional Officer, Dalbhum, Jamshedpur. The respondent authorities, however, have refused to take it into account on the ground that in Column no.5 of the application form, the petitioner gave the address of a village in the district of Azamgarh, Uttar Pradesh as his permanent residence. According to the authorities, the caste certificate will be taken into consideration only if it was issued by the District Magistrate or the Civil S.D.O. or the District Welfate Officer of the area of his/her residence.

4. According to the petitioner his father Bishram Ram is an employee of the Central Government and was posted in the Telecom Department at Jamshedpur for the past many years. It is further stated that the petitioner was born and brought up in Bihar and has been studying at Jamshedpur for a number of years. In those circumstances, learned counsel for the petitioner submitted that clause 10(g) of the prospectus spoke of the area of residence and not the area of permanent residence as invited by the authorities in the counter affidavit filed on their behalf.

5. At this stage, it may be noted that in the reply affidavit filed on behalf of the petitioner a photo stat copy of a caste certificate has been annexed which is issued by the Pargana Magistrate, Sadar, Azamgarh and is also endorsed by the S.D.O. Phones, Jamshedpur. Another caste certificate issued from the school where the petitioner is said to have studied has also been enclosed as annexure 9.

6. Having heard learned counsel for the petitioner and the State and having perused the writ petitioner, the counter affidavit and the reply affidavit, I find that the respondent authorities have refused to accept the petitioner as a scheduled caste candidate for a reason which appears to be quite technical and not very material. In the facts and circumstances of this case, therefore, I direct the petitioner to file a representation before the Controller of Examination, Health Service, Bihar, Patna, respondent no. 4 within a week from today enclosing all the certificates on which he would rely in support of his claim to belong to a scheduled caste. In case such a representation is filed, respondent no.4 will consider it and dispose it of in accordance with law and in case it is found that the petitioner satisfied the conditions and actually belonged to the scheduled caste, his candidature would be treated as belonging to the reserved category for the scheduled caste.

7. This application is disposed of with the aforesaid observations and directions.