The main legal point established is the importance of considering all materials in determining community status to prevent fraudulent claims and ensure benefits reach genuine candidates of scheduled tribes.

1. The Union of India owning Southern Railway has come up with this Writ Petition challenging the order passed by the Tamil Nadu State Level Scrutiny Committee, Adi Dravidar and Development Welfare Department, Chennai, on the ground that string of documents produced to demonstrate that the second respondent is not a member of Schedule Tribe Community and that he is a member of backward community, as per the service records of his father and school records of his children, the Committee placing reliance on the certificate of a relative of the second respondent, declared his Schedule Tribe community status. In short, failure to consider the voluminous documents produced by the Railways, before the statutory Committee for deciding the community status of the second respondent made the employer to challenge the order declaring his status as a schedule tribe.

The facts:-

2. The second respondent while joining the service of Railways, produced a Schedule Tribe community certificate dated 7 April 1979 issued by the Tahsildar, Sri. Kalahasthi, Andhra Pradesh. The second respondent produced another community certificate dated 14 December 1982 issued by the Tahsildar, Arakkonam, indicating that he belongs to Kammara Community, which is a notified schedule tribe. Subsequently, the Railways found that Sri. R. Duraisamy Achari, father of the petitioner worked as a Kalasi and he claimed that he belongs to Achari community, which is not a Schedule Tribe Community. The Railways verified the community status of the two children of the second respondent who were then studying at the Cambridge Matriculation Higher Secondary School. The school authorities informed the Railways that as per the available records, the children belong to Achari community, which is a backward community. The Railways therefore sent the community certificate produced by the second respondent for verification, to the District Collector. The initiation of scrutiny proceedings by the District Level Committee was challenged by the second respondent before the High Court in W.P. No. 4126 of 2005 on the ground that two member Committee was not competent to verify the genuineness of the community certificate of schedule tribes. The High Court by order dated 30 October 2009 directed the Chairperson, District Level Vigilance Committee to forward the papers to the State Level Scrutiny Committee for verification. The State Level Committee by order dated 20 March 2015, upheld the claim made by the second respondent that he belongs to schedule tribe. The petitioner approached the State Level Scrutiny Committee to review its order. The petitioner was informed that the remedy is only to file a Writ Petition. Feeling aggrieved by the order passed by the State Level Scrutiny Committee, the Railways is before this Court.

Rival submissions:-

3. The learned Senior counsel for the Railways by placing reliance on the documents available on record submitted that father of the petitioner declared that he belongs to Achari community, which is a backward community. Even the second respondent declared the community status of his children as Achari. Even though Railways produced several documents indicating that the petitioner does not belong to Schedule Tribe, none of those materials were considered by the State Level Scrutiny Committee. According to the learned Senior counsel, the State Level Scrutiny Committee confirmed the community status only on the basis of the educational certificate of Tmt. G. Punitha, who is stated to be the cousin of the second respondent. The learned Senior counsel contended that the Railways should not be treated as a thirty party to the scrutiny proceedings. According to the learned Senior counsel, in case the order passed by the State Level Scrutiny Committee dated 20 March 2015 is not subjected to judicial review, public interest would suffer inasmuch as even the children of the second respondent henceforth would claim Schedule Tribe status. It was further conte