Remanded

Harshad Narayan Thakar v. the State of Maharashtra and Ors.

Bombay HC15 Oct 2008WP/5833/2008

Case brief

AI extract

What is this about?

The High Court of Bombay (Civil Appellate Jurisdiction) quashed the order of the Scrutiny Committee that invalidated the petitioner's caste certificate. The court found it anomalous for siblings to be classified differently based on the Committee's decision and remanded the matter for fresh consideration.

What did the court decide?

Impugned order of the Scrutiny Committee dated 25.3.2008 was quashed; case remanded to Committee to decide afresh within eight weeks.

Harshad Narayan Thakar Vs the State of… — Constitutional and Fundamental Rights | Bombay HC (2008)

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 IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT BOMBAY

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 CIVIL APPELLATE JURISDICTION

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WRIT PETITION NO. 5833 OF 2008

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 Harshad Narayan Thakar ... Petitioner

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 Versus

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 The State of Maharashtra & Ors. Respondents

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 Mr.Amit Sale, Advocate, for the petitioner.

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 Mr. A.L.Patki, Special Counsel for Respondents 1 to 4.

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CORAM: BILAL NAZKI & J.H.BHATIA,JJ

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 DATED: 15th October, 2008.

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P.C.

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 1. The petitioner’s certificate with regard to his
 caste has been invalidated by the Scrutiny Committee by
 the impugned order dated 25.3.2008. One of the
 documents on which the petitioner relied was a
 certificate issued by the same Scrutiny Committee on
 4.3.2005 validating the caste certificate of the real
 sister of the petitioner. It is not disputed that it

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 was certified by the Scrutiny Committee that the real

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 sister of the petitioner belongs to Hindu Thakar which
 is a Scheduled Tribe. The Committee did not rely on
 this document to certify the certificate of the
 petitioner on the ground that each case had to be
 decided on its own merits. That may be true to an
 extent, but there are limitations to such a proposition
 when the case is being considered of the same family.
 The judgment which have been relied upon by the Scrutiny
 Committee were not in the factual matrix in which the
 case pertains to the members of the same family. If the
 view of the Scrutiny Committee is upheld, it can create
 an anomalous position where the father would be of one
 caste and the children would be of different castes. In
 the present case now, the sister is held to be belonging
 to the Scheduled Tribe, whereas the brother is held to
 be belonging to upper caste. In any case, the Committee
 has not considered why it was earlier the allegation
 with regard to the issuance of caste validating
 certificate of the sister of the petitioner bad.

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 2. In this view of the matter, we quash the order of
 the Scrutiny Committee and remand it back to the
 Committee to decide the matter afresh. The petitioner
 was selected to the post of Police Constable but the
 post was not offered to him as he could not produce the

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 caste validating certificate. Therefore, we direct the
 Scrutiny Committee to dispose of the matter again within
 eight weeks from the date of receipt of a copy of this
 order.

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(BILALNAZKI,J.)

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(J.H.BHATIA, J.)

Harshad Narayan Thakar v. the State of Maharashtra and Ors.

Case brief

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Harshad Narayan Thakar v. the State of Maharashtra and Ors.

Case brief

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