1 wp no. 1841/2024 IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT BOMBAY NAGPUR BENCH AT NAGPUR WRIT PETITION No.1841/2024 Mr. Dilip S/o Dnyanoba Narnaware, Aged about 52 years, Occ. Service, R.o Vidhya Nagari, Nande Pera By- Pass Road, Wani, Tah. Wani, District Yavatmal : PETITIONER VS. 1] Deputy Director & Member – Secretary, The Scheduled Tribe Certificate Scrutiny Committee, Yavatmal, Near Rangoli Ground, Shastri Nagar, Yavatmal - 445001. 2] The Chief Executive Officer, Zilla Parishad, Yavatmal, Arni Road, Yavatmal. 3] The Education Officer (Primary), Zilla Parishad, Yavatmal. : RESPONDENT Mr. Ananta Ramteke, Advocate for the petitioner Mrs. S.S. Dhote, AGP for Respondent CORAM: URMILA JOSHI PHALKE AND NIVEDITA P. MEHTA, JJ. Date of reserving the judgment : 30.07.2026 Date of pronouncing the judgment: 06.08.2026 JUDGMENT (PER : NIVEDITA P. MEHTA) 1. Rule. Rule made returnable forthwith. Heard finally, by consent of the learned counsel appearing for the respective parties. 2026:BHC-NAG:10104-DB 2 wp no. 1841/2024 2. The present petition was filed under Article 226 of the Constitution of India, thereby challenging the order dated 29.01.2024 passed by the Scheduled Tribe Certificate Scrutiny Committee, Yavatmal, wherein the petitioner's claim for validation of his tribe certificate showing him to belong to "Mana" Scheduled Tribe has been rejected and his tribe certificate has been cancelled and confiscated. 3. Briefly stated, the petitioner was appointed as an Assistant Teacher on 29.06.1995 against a post reserved for the Scheduled Tribe category under the establishment of respondent Nos.2 and 3. Earlier, the competent authority had issued tribe certificates in his favour on 27.09.2006 and 24.08.2018, certifying that he belongs to "Mana" Scheduled Tribe. Pursuant to his appointment, his tribe claim was referred to the respondent-Scrutiny Committee for verification. 4. As the verification proceedings remained pending for an inordinate period, the petitioner was compelled to approach this Court on more than one occasion. Initially, in Writ Petition No.3824 of 2009, this Court directed the Scrutiny Committee to decide his tribe claim within six months and further protected his service pending such adjudication. Thereafter, upon the Committee failing to comply with the said direction, additional time was sought by the Committee in Civil Application (W) No.1983 of 2010, which was granted by this Court. Even thereafter, when the matter remained undecided, the petitioner again approached this Court 3 wp no. 1841/2024 in Writ Petition No.8396 of 2021, wherein this Court directed the Committee to decide his claim expeditiously while continuing the protection granted to his service. 5. Ultimately, after considerable delay, the respondent- Committee passed the impugned order dated 29.01.2024, invalidating the petitioner's claim for "Mana" Scheduled Tribe and directing cancellation and confiscation of his tribe certificates. Aggrieved thereby, the petitioner has invoked the writ jurisdiction of this Court. 6. Learned counsel for the petitioner Mr. Ananta Ramteke submits that the impugned order suffers from patent illegality and proceeds in complete disregard of the settled principles governing adjudication of tribe claims. It is contended that the respondent-Committee has failed to assign due evidentiary value to the caste validity certificate already granted in favour of the petitioner's son, Shubham Dilip Narnaware, pursuant to the judgment of this Court in Writ Petition No.5252 of 2019, wherein this Court quashed the order of invalidation and directed issuance of a validity certificate recognizing him as belonging to "Mana" Scheduled Tribe. In compliance with the said judgment, the competent Scrutiny Committee issued a validity certificate in favour of Shubham Dilip Narnaware on 31.07.2019. It is submitted that once a paternal blood relative has been granted a validity certificate, the respondent-Committee could not have ignored the same in the absence of any finding that such certificate had 4 wp no. 1841/2024 been obtained by fraud or that the proceedings culminating in its issuance had been set aside in accordance with law. 7. Learned counsel for the petitioner further submitted that the petitioner has produced as many as fourteen documents in support of his tribe claim, out of which four are pre-Constitution documents. These include the birth extract dated 30.11.1925 pertaining to a child born to petitioner's grandfather, the birth extract dated 10.03.1928 relating to another child born to petitioner's grandfather, the birth extract dated 08.03.1930 relating to another child born to petitioner's grandfather, and the death register extract dated 04.09.1932 of the petitioner's cousin grandfather. It is submitted that all these documents consistently record the caste as "Mana" and, being pre-Constitution documents, possess high probative value and conclusively establish the tribal status of the family. The Committee, however, discarded these documents primarily on the ground that the petitioner's forefathers hailed from the Chandrapur region, which according to the Committee fell outside its territorial jurisdiction. Learned counsel submits that such reasoning is contrary to Rule 12 of the Maharashtra Scheduled Tribes (Regulation of Issuance and Verification of) Certificate Rules, 2003, which obliges the Vigilance Cell to conduct inquiry at the place from where the applicant or his ancestors originally hailed. 8. Learned counsel further submits that the Committee has placed undue reliance upon certain adverse entries such as "Kunbi", "Mani" 5 wp no. 1841/2024 and similar descriptions allegedly collected during vigilance inquiry. According to the petitioner, the entries relied upon by the Committee do not pertain to his paternal lineage and, in fact, he had specifically pointed out in his reply to the show-cause notice that some of those documents related to persons unconnected with his family. It is also contended that the Committee travelled beyond the permissible scope of inquiry by collecting independent material to disprove the petitioner's claim, contrary to the law laid down by the Hon'ble Supreme Court in Anand vs. Committee for Scrutiny and Verification of Tribe Claims reported in 2012 (1) SCC 113. 9. The petitioner has also challenged the findings recorded by the Committee regarding the affinity test. It is submitted that the affinity test cannot be treated as the sole or determinative criterion for adjudicating a tribe claim, particularly where reliable documentary evidence and a validity certificate of a paternal blood relative are already available on record and in this regard reliance is placed upon the judgment passed by the Hon’ble Supreme Court in Maharashtra Adiwasi Thakur Jamat Swarakshan Samiti v State of Maharashtra, (2023) SCC OnLine SC 326. Learned counsel further submits that the Committee has also erred in drawing generalized conclusions regarding the existence of "Mana" as a non-tribal community without any material specifically connecting the petitioner to such community. On the aforesaid premises, it is urged that the impugned order deserves to be quashed and set aside and the respondent-Committee be 6 wp no. 1841/2024 directed to issue a caste validity certificate in favour of the petitioner recognizing him as belonging to "Mana" Scheduled Tribe. 10. In support of the aforesaid submissions, reliance is placed on the decision of this Court in Apoorva d/o Vinay Nichale v. Divisional Caste Certificate Scrutiny Committee No.1 and others, reported in 2010 (6) Mh.L.J. 401, to contend that a validity certificate issued in favour of a paternal blood relative is binding upon the Scrutiny Committee unless it is shown to have been obtained by fraud in proceedings initiated in accordance with law. Reliance is also placed on the decision of this Court in Gautam Parashram Gadmade v. The Commandant, State Reserve Police Force and others (Writ Petition No.5832 of 2022), wherein it has been held that a subsisting validity certificate issued in favour of a close blood relative cannot be ignored merely because there are certain inconsistent caste entries in the ancestral records. 11. Per contra, the learned Assistant Government Pleader Mrs. S. S. Dhote, appearing for respondent No.1- Scheduled Tribe Certificate Scrutiny Committee supported the impugned order and submitted that the Committee has meticulously evaluated the entire material placed before it, including the documentary evidence produced by the petitioner, the report of the Police Vigilance Cell and the petitioner's explanation thereto, before arriving at the conclusion that the petitioner failed to establish his claim of belonging to "Mana" Scheduled Tribe. 7 wp no. 1841/2024 12. It is submitted that, though the petitioner relied upon the caste validity certificate issued in favour of his son, Shubham Dilip Narnaware, the Committee was justified in not treating the said validity certificate as conclusive in the peculiar facts of the case. According to the respondents, the vigilance enquiry conducted in the petitioner's case revealed certain material which was either not available or had not been considered while deciding the tribe claim of the petitioner's son. The Committee, therefore, independently assessed the petitioner's claim on the basis of the entire material brought on record and found that the validity certificate granted in favour of the petitioner's son could not be made the sole basis for granting validity to the petitioner. 13. The learned AGP further submitted that the vigilance enquiry disclosed certain adverse caste entries such as "Mani", "Kunbi", "Mana Kunbi" and similar descriptions in the records collected during the enquiry. According to the Committee, these contra entries created serious doubt regarding the petitioner's social status. The explanation furnished by the petitioner in response to the vigilance report was found to be unsatisfactory and incapable of dispelling the doubts arising from the adverse material. The Committee, therefore, rightly considered such entries while adjudicating the petitioner's claim. 8 wp no. 1841/2024 14. It is further contended that the pre-Constitution documents relied upon by the petitioner do not conclusively establish his tribal status. The Committee found that some of those documents pertained to persons residing in the Chandrapur region and, therefore, considered it unsafe to place implicit reliance upon them while deciding the petitioner's claim. According to the respondents, the documentary evidence produced by the petitioner was not sufficient to outweigh the adverse material collected during the vigilance enquiry. 15. Learned AGP also submitted that the petitioner did not satisfactorily establish his affinity with the characteristics and traits of the "Mana" Scheduled Tribe. The Committee has recorded findings on the affinity aspect after considering the vigilance report and other relevant material. It is submitted that the Committee has also examined the judicial precedents cited before it and correctly applied the governing principles while deciding the petitioner's claim. The impugned order, therefore, does not suffer from any jurisdictional error, perversity or illegality warranting interference in exercise of the extraordinary jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Constitution of India. 16. Having considered the rival submissions and having perused the record, this Court finds that the impugned order passed by the respondent- Scrutiny Committee cannot be sustained in law. The principal reason which weighed with the Committee in invalidating the petitioner's 9 wp no. 1841/2024 caste claim is the alleged existence of certain adverse entries reflecting the caste as "Mani" and "Kunbi". However, while doing so, the Committee has failed to accord due weight to the overwhelming documentary evidence produced by the petitioner, particularly the pre-Constitution documents and the validity certificate issued in favour of the petitioner's real brother. The approach adopted by the Committee is contrary to the settled principles governing adjudication of caste claims. 17. At the outset, it is not in dispute that the petitioner has placed on record a caste validity certificate issued in favour of his son, Shubham Dilip Narnaware, recognizing him as belonging to "Mana" Scheduled Tribe. The record further reveals that the said validity certificate was not issued merely on administrative scrutiny, but was granted pursuant to the judgment dated 30.07.2019 passed by this Court in Writ Petition No.5252 of 2019, whereby the order invalidating his tribe claim was quashed and the respondent-Committee was directed to issue a validity certificate in his favour. In compliance with the said judicial direction, the competent Scrutiny Committee issued the validity certificate on 31.07.2019. Thus, the tribal status of the petitioner's son has attained finality and continues to hold the field. 18. The respondent-Committee, however, declined to extend the benefit of the aforesaid validity certificate to the petitioner principally on the ground that, during the vigilance enquiry conducted in the petitioner's 10 wp no. 1841/2024 case, certain adverse material surfaced in the form of entries such as "Mani", "Kunbi" and similar descriptions, which, according to the Committee, had either not been considered or were unavailable when the petitioner's son's claim was decided. Proceeding on that basis, the Committee independently scrutinized the petitioner's claim and discarded the evidentiary value of the validity certificate granted in favour of his son. 19. In our considered opinion, the approach adopted by the Committee is contrary to the settled principles governing adjudication of caste and tribe claims. A validity certificate issued by the competent Scrutiny Committee, particularly when it has been issued in pursuance of a judicial pronouncement, cannot be brushed aside on mere conjectures or by undertaking a collateral examination of the correctness of the earlier decision. Unless it is demonstrated that the validity certificate was procured by practising fraud or misrepresentation, or unless it is withdrawn by following the procedure known to law, the same continues to possess binding evidentiary value while considering the claim of another member of the same paternal lineage. 20. The law in this regard is no longer res integra. In Apoorva d/ o Vinay Nichale vs. Divisional Caste Certificate Scrutiny Committee and others (supra), this Court authoritatively held that where a caste validity certificate has been granted in favour of a paternal blood relative after due enquiry, the Scrutiny Committee is ordinarily bound to maintain consistency 11 wp no. 1841/2024 and extend similar treatment to another member of the same family, unless it is shown that the earlier validity certificate was obtained by fraud or that there exist exceptional circumstances justifying a departure. The underlying principle is that members of the same paternal family ordinarily inherit the same social status, and conflicting conclusions in respect of the same lineage are to be avoided. Likewise, in Gautam Gadmade vs. The Commandant, State Reserve Police Force and others (supra), this Court held that a validity certificate granted to a paternal blood relative constitutes reliable and weighty evidence of the claimant's social status and cannot be disregarded merely because the Committee entertains a different view on appreciation of the same material. The Court further observed that the Committee cannot sit in appeal over a subsisting validity certificate issued in favour of a close blood relative.Tested on the touchstone of the aforesaid principles, the reasoning adopted by the respondent-Committee cannot be sustained. The Committee has neither recorded a finding that the validity certificate granted to the petitioner's son was obtained by fraud nor has it shown that the said validity has been cancelled or otherwise rendered ineffective in accordance with law. In the absence of such findings, the Committee could not have undertaken an indirect exercise of questioning the correctness of the earlier determination by assigning greater weight to certain adverse entries collected during vigilance enquiry. 21. Apart from the validity certificate issued in favour of the petitioner's son, the documentary evidence produced by the petitioner also 12 wp no. 1841/2024 lends considerable support to his claim. The petitioner has placed on record four pre-Constitution documents, namely, the birth records dated 30.11.1925, 10.03.1928 and 08.03.1930, and the death register extract dated 04.09.1932, all consistently recording the caste as "Mana". It is well settled that pre-Constitution documents carry greater probative value as they came into existence prior to the constitutional scheme of reservation and, therefore, possess a higher degree of reliability. The Committee discarded these documents solely on the ground that they pertain to villages situated in Chandrapur District. Such reasoning cannot be sustained in view of Rule 12(3) of the Maharashtra Scheduled Tribes (Regulation of Issuance and Verification of) Certificate Rules, 2003, which expressly requires the Vigilance Cell to conduct inquiry even at the place from where the claimant or his ancestors originally hailed. The rejection of these documents on the ground of territorial jurisdiction is, therefore, contrary to the statutory mandate. 22. The Committee has also relied upon certain adverse entries reflecting the caste as "Mani", "Kunbi" and similar descriptions. However, the petitioner had specifically explained that the documents dated 25.08.1910 and 20.09.1922 do not pertain to his paternal family. Despite this explanation, the Committee has not recorded any finding establishing the genealogical nexus between those documents and the petitioner's lineage. In the absence of such linkage, the evidentiary value of those 13 wp no. 1841/2024 adverse entries is considerably weakened, particularly when viewed against the consistent pre-Constitution documents produced by the petitioner. 23. The respondents sought to justify the impugned order by contending that certain adverse documents surfaced during the vigilance inquiry in the petitioner's case which were not available when the claim of the petitioner's son was decided. This submission cannot be accepted. If the Committee believed that the subsequently discovered material affected the validity certificate issued in favour of the petitioner's son, the proper course was to initiate proceedings for cancellation of that validity certificate in accordance with law. So long as the said validity certificate continues to hold the field, the Committee could not disregard its evidentiary value while deciding the petitioner's claim. 24. Further, accepting the Committee's approach would result in contradictory findings regarding members of the same paternal lineage, namely, that the petitioner's son belongs to "Mana" Scheduled Tribe while the petitioner does not. Such inconsistency is contrary to the settled principles governing caste verification and, therefore, cannot be sustained. 25. Upon an overall appreciation of the material placed before it, this Court is satisfied that the petitioner has succeeded in establishing his claim of belonging to "Mana" Scheduled Tribe by producing reliable documentary evidence of high probative value, which is further reinforced 14 wp no. 1841/2024 by the validity certificate already issued in favour of his son pursuant to the judgment of this Court. The reasons assigned by the respondent–Committee for discarding such evidence are neither legally sustainable nor supported by the statutory scheme governing caste verification. The impugned order, therefore, suffers from perversity, non-consideration of material evidence, misapplication of settled legal principles and failure to appreciate the binding effect of the earlier judicial determination. 26. In view of the foregoing discussion, the impugned order dated 29.01.2024 passed by Respondent No.1- committee in Case No. 5-ST/2007/13033 is hereby quashed and set aside. The respondent- Scheduled Tribe Certificate Scrutiny Committee, Yavatmal shall issue a validity certificate certifying the petitioner as belonging to "Mana" Scheduled Tribe within a period of four weeks from the date of receipt of this judgment. Accordingly, the Writ Petition is allowed. 27. Rule is made absolute in the aforesaid terms. No order as to costs. (NIVEDITA P. MEHTA,J.) (URMILA JOSHI PHALKE, J.) MP Deshpande