The judgment established that the rule of matriarchy does not apply to claims of belonging to a Scheduled Tribe, and the legal provisions under the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 and relevant articles of the Constitution of India are crucial in determining caste status.

Common Order : (Elipe Dharma Rao, J.)

For the sake of convenience and easy reference, the contesting parties are hereinafter referred to as per their ranking in W.P.No.31246 of 2007 and the second respondent in W.P.No.32249 of 2007 is hereinafter referred to as the Committee.

2. The petitioner has joined the services of the respondent Bank as a Clerk at the Erode Branch on 17. 1982 under the Scheduled Tribe quota on the basis of a community certificate issued by the Additional Special Judge, Krishnagiri, Dharmapuri District, showing her as belonging to Kurumans community. When she produced the original certificates, the Bank found that in the S.S.L.C. Book, her community was entered as Vellalar community, which is not a ST. Therefore, the community certificate produced by the petitioner was referred for verification by the District Collector, Dharmapuri District and the Bank issued a memo. on 9. 1982 to the petitioner to produce a fresh community certificate. According to the petitioner, she applied to the Tahsildar for a fresh community certificate and even though necessary enquiries were made by the revenue officials, there was delay in issuing the community certificate and in the meantime, the Bank has also proposed to initiate disciplinary proceedings and therefore, she has filed W.P.No.3541 of 1983 before this Court praying for a Writ of Mandamus to treat her as a Scheduled Tribe person on the basis of the community certificate dated 25. 1982 issued by the Additional Special Judge, Krishnagiri, without insisting on the production of a fresh community certificate from the District Collector, and the said writ petition was dismissed as premature on 2. 1984. The next day i.e. on 2. 1984, the petitioner submitted a letter to the respondent Bank contending that the community certificate already produced by her as obtained from the valid and competent authority is genuine and therefore, there was no need to furnish a fresh community certificate as it is no longer necessary to produce a fresh community certificate from the Collector of the District, but, however, the respondent Bank issued a charge memo. dated 15. 1985 alleging that the community was not shown as Scheduled Tribe in the S.S.L.C. Book and that she did not produce any community certificate from the Collector as required and on enquiry from the Collector, the respondent Bank was convinced that the petitioner do not belong to Kurumans community but belonged to Vellala Caste.

3. At this juncture, on the part of the respondent Bank, they would plead that the Collector, Dharmapuri District, by his communication dated 14. 1985, has informed them that the petitioner belonged to Vellalar community and hence they have issued the show-cause notice to the petitioner. After enquiry, a show-cause notice dated 111. 1985 was issued by the disciplinary authority proposing to inflict the punishment of dismissal from service and aggrieved of the same, she filed W.P.No.12797 of 1985, praying to quash the same, but it was dismissed on 112. 1985. The Writ Appeal preferred against the same also met the same fate of dismissal. In the meantime, the disciplinary authority has confirmed the punishment of dismissal from service by the order dated 1. 1986, based on which the respondent Bank passed an order dated 1. 1986. Challenging the said order of dismissal, the petitioner filed W.P.No.2721 of 1986 before this Court. A learned single Judge of this Court, in the order dated 10. 1996 has ordered as follows:

"Therefore, to solve the problem once for all, I feel that a direction should be issued to the District Collector concerned to decide the question of the petitioners caste status following the guidelines contained in the writ appeal No.241 of 1996 dated 3. 1996. The petitioner shall apply to the District Collector, Dharmapuri for the issuance of the community certificate within four weeks from today, notwithstanding the fact that there was an application by the petitioner on 1