Bharti D/o. Manohar Surey vs The State Of Maharashtra & Ors.

Development Department,

COMMON JUDGMENT : (PER : NIVEDITA P. MEHTA, J.)

Rule. Rule made returnable forthwith. Heard finally by consent of the learned counsel appearing for the respective parties.

The petitioners, by these petitions, are challenging the common order dated 19.09.2022 passed by the respondent - Scheduled Tribe Caste Certificate Scrutiny Committee, Amravati, thereby invalidating the tribe claims of the petitioners to the 'Mannewar' Scheduled Tribe which is enlisted at Sr. No. 18 of the Constitution (Scheduled Tribe) Order, 1950.

The petitioner in Writ Petition No. 6222 of 2022 is serving as a Teacher at Bhartiya Mahavidyalaya, Morshi, respondent No.3. She was appointed on 11.10.1991 against a post reserved for the Scheduled Tribe category on the strength of a caste certificate dated 25.06.1985 issued by the competent authority certifying her as belonging to "Mannewar" Scheduled Tribe. Her tribe claim was forwarded to the respondent - Scrutiny Committee for verification on 22.07.2013. By the impugned order, the respondent - Committee invalidated her tribe claim, giving rise to the present petition. It is stated that the petitioner is due to retire from service on 31.03.2028.

The petitioner in Writ Petition No. 6205 of 2022 was appointed as a Teacher (Physical Education) at Adarsha Mahavidyalaya, Dhamangaon, respondent No.3, on 26.07.1989 against a post reserved for the Scheduled Tribe category. She had obtained a Caste Certificate dated 16.06.1983 from the competent authority certifying her as belonging to "Mannewar" Scheduled Tribe. Her tribe claim was referred to the respondent - Scrutiny Committee for verification on 22.07.2013. Consequent upon the impugned order invalidating her tribe claim, her services came to be terminated on 20.10.2022. Thereafter, respondent Nos.3 and 4, by communication dated 26.11.2022, called upon the petitioner to refund the retiral benefits paid to her. By an interim order dated 21.12.2022, this Court directed that no coercive steps shall be taken to recover the retiral benefits from the petitioner during the pendency of the petition.

The petitioner in Writ Petition No. 6182 of 2022 was appointed initially as a Junior Engineer with the Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority (MHADA) on 22.07.1996 against a post reserved for the Scheduled Tribe category. He had obtained a caste certificate in the year 1992-93 from the competent authority certifying him as belonging to "Mannewar" Scheduled Tribe. His tribe claim was forwarded to the respondent - Scrutiny Committee for verification on 10.12.2009. By the impugned order, the respondent - Committee invalidated his tribe claim, which has been challenged in the present petition. It is stated that the petitioner retired from service on 31.12.2025.

The petitioner in Writ Petition No. 6255 of 2022 was appointed as a Clerk /Asstt. Cashier/Godown Keeper with the Central Bank of India, respondent No.3, on 28.03.1984 against a post reserved for the Scheduled Tribe Category. She had obtained a Caste Certificate dated 11.04.1983 from the competent authority certifying her as belonging to "Mannewar" Scheduled Tribe. Her tribe claim was forwarded to the respondent - Scrutiny Committee for verification on 28.09.2021. By the impugned order, the respondent - Committee invalidated her tribe claim, which is under challenge in the present petition. The petitioner retired from service on 30.04.2022.

Since all the petitioners are real brothers and sisters, claim descent from the same paternal lineage, rely upon substantially the same documentary evidence, and challenge a common course of reasoning adopted by the respondent - Scrutiny Committee while invalidating their claims to "Mannewar" Scheduled Tribe, all these petitions were heard together and are being decided by this common judgment.

In support of their claim of belonging to "Mannewar" Scheduled Tribe, the petitioners placed reliance upon several documentary records before the respondent - Scrutiny Committee. Amongst them, the following documents, pertaining to the pre-constitution period, assume significant evidentiary value:

During the course of the verification proceedings, the Vigilance Cell conducted an enquiry and submitted its report, a copy whereof was served upon all the petitioners on 14.05.2018. Thereafter, the respondent - Scrutiny Committee issued a common show-cause notice dated 24.05.2018, calling upon the petitioners to submit their explanation to the adverse observations contained in the Vigilance Cell Report. The petitioners were thereafter called for personal hearing on 28.01.2022. On the said date, Shri Gajendra Manohar Surey, the petitioner in Writ Petition No. 6182 of 2022, appeared before the respondent - Scrutiny Committee on behalf of all the petitioners, who are real brothers and sisters, and requested that the reply submitted by him to the show-cause notice be treated as the common reply on behalf of all the petitioners.

Mr. A.S. Mardikar, learned counsel appearing for the petitioners, submits that the impugned order suffers from patent illegality and is liable to be set aside, as the respondent - Scrutiny Committee has failed to appreciate the documentary evidence in its proper perspective. It is submitted that the petitioners have produced several pre-constitutional documents pertaining to their paternal ancestors and blood relatives, including the oldest school record of their grandfather dated 06.01.1922, containing the caste entry "Telangi Mannewar", besides numerous other records carrying the entry "Mannewar". According to the learned counsel, such pre-constitutional documents possess the highest probative value and conclusively establish the petitioners' claim of belonging to "Mannewar" Scheduled Tribe, but the Committee has brushed aside the said evidence without assigning cogent reasons.

It is further submitted that the Committee has erroneously treated entries such as "Telangi Mannewar", "Mannewar Kshatriya" and "Kshatriya Mannewar" as distinct castes. It is contended that there exists no independent caste by the aforesaid nomenclature and that the prefix "Telangi" merely denotes the geographical origin or linguistic affiliation of the family, whereas the suffix "Kshatriya" signifies only a social classification and not a separate caste. Reliance is placed on several decisions of this Court, including the decision in Suresh Kumar Balkrishna Naidu v. State of Maharashtra, 2019 (5) Mh.L.J 572, to contend that the expressions "Telgu" or "Telangi" refer only to the region of erstwhile Andhra Pradesh and do not alter the tribal status of a person belonging to the "Mannewar" Scheduled Tribe.

It is further submitted that the respondent - Committee has misread the Vigilance Cell Report and has ignored the documentary evidence found to be genuine during vigilance enquiry. The Committee is stated to have discarded the overwhelming documentary evidence in favour of the petitioners while placing reliance upon documents pertaining to persons who do not belong to the petitioners' family. It is contended that the findings recorded by the Committee are, therefore, perverse and suffer from non-application of mind.

Learned counsel for the petitioners further submits that the Committee has also erred in rejecting the petitioners' claim on the ground of failure to establish affinity. It is argued that the affinity test is only corroborative in nature and cannot override reliable documentary evidence, particularly pre-constitutional records. It is further contended that the Committee has neither specified which customs or traits of the petitioners were inconsistent with those of the "Mannewar" Scheduled Tribe, nor has it dealt with the detailed explanation furnished by the petitioners in response to the Vigilance Cell Report. According to the learned counsel, the findings on affinity are thus unsupported by reasons and contrary to the settled principles laid down by the Hon'ble Supreme Court that modernization, migration and interaction with other communities inevitably bring about changes in socio-cultural practices.

Lastly, it is submitted that the respondent - Committee has ignored the legal position that "Mannewar" is a distinct Scheduled Tribe specifically included at Sr. No.18 of the Constitution (Scheduled Tribes) Order, 1950, and that the Committee was not justified in treating it as a mere sub-tribe of Gond. It is, therefore, contended that the impugned orders are arbitrary, contrary to the evidence on record and the settled position of law, and deserve to be quashed and set aside with appropriate consequential reliefs in favour of all the petitioners.

Per Contra, the learned Assistant Government Pleader appearing for the respondent – Committee supports the impugned orders and submits that the same have been passed upon due appreciation of the entire material placed on record. It is contended that the petitioners failed to establish their claim of belonging to "Mannewar" Scheduled Tribe by producing cogent and reliable evidence warranting issuance of Validity Certificates.

It is submitted that several documents produced by the petitioners as well as those collected by the Vigilance Cell during the course of enquiry contain the caste entries "Telangi Mannewar" and "Kshatriya Mannewar" pertaining to the years 1922, 1924, 1927, 1940 and 1950. According to the respondent, these are pre-constitutional public documents possessing high probative value and, therefore, could not have been ignored by the Scrutiny Committee. Although the petitioners relied upon a sale deed dated 28.10.1942 containing the caste entry "Mannewar", the Committee rightly considered the other contemporaneous pre-constitutional documents carrying the entries "Telangi Mannewar" and "Kshatriya Mannewar", which, according to the respondent, constitute adverse evidence against the petitioners' tribe claim.

It is further submitted that "Mannewar" is a sub-tribe of Gond, and that in certain regions members of the Gond tribe are known as "Mannewar Gond" or "Mannewar". According to the respondent, the Telugu or Telangi communities originally hail from the State of Andhra Pradesh and had migrated to the border areas of Maharashtra. Their mother tongue is Telugu, they follow Hindu customs and rituals, worship Hindu deities and do not maintain any social affinity or ethnic linkage with the Gond or Gond Mannewar Scheduled Tribe. It is, therefore, contended that the petitioners failed to establish their socio-cultural affinity with the "Mannewar" Scheduled Tribe.

The learned AGP further submits that the respondent -Committee has rightly relied upon the decision of this Court in Writ Petition No. 2120 of 2006 (Krishna Laxmiyya Lade v. State of Maharashtra), wherein this Court upheld the rejection of a tribe claim after noticing entries such as "Telengi", "Telgu" and "Hindu-Telgu-Manyawar", coupled with the claimant's failure to establish affinity with the "Mannewar" Scheduled Tribe. It is contended that the facts of the present case are substantially similar and, therefore, the said decision squarely supports the impugned orders.

Lastly, it is submitted that the respondent - Scrutiny Committee afforded the petitioners adequate opportunity of hearing, duly considered the documentary evidence, the Vigilance Cell Report and the explanation furnished by the petitioners, and thereafter passed a detailed and reasoned order invalidating their tribe claims. It is, therefore, submitted that the impugned orders do not suffer from any illegality, perversity or jurisdictional error warranting interference under Article 226 of the Constitution of India, and the petitions deserve to be dismissed.

We have heard counsel for the respective parties at length. Perused the record and proceedings with the assistance of the learned Assistant Government Pleader and considered the relevant documents and citations relied on by the learned Counsel for the Petitioner.

A substantial part of the controversy revolves around the entries appearing in the documentary evidence, particularly the entries "Telangi Mannewar", "Telugu Mannewar", "Kshatriya Mannewar" and "Mannewar Kshatriya", on the basis of which the respondent - Scrutiny Committee has concluded that the petitioners do not belong to the "Mannewar" Scheduled Tribe. Upon a careful consideration of the material on record and the settled legal position, we are unable to subscribe to the said view.

At the outset, it is necessary to note that the petitioners have produced several pre-constitutional documents pertaining to their paternal lineage. Amongst them, the oldest document is the School Leaving Certificate of their grandfather Sarwayya Purushottam dated 06.01.1922, recording the caste as "Telangi Mannewar", apart from the registered sale deed dated 28.10.1942 recording the caste simply as "Mannewar". The Vigilance Cell has also collected certain pre-Constitutional documents containing the entries "Telangi Mannewar" and "Kshatriya Mannewar", on the basis of which the respondent-Committee has treated the documentary evidence as inconsistent. In our considered opinion, such an approach is contrary to the settled position of law consistently adopted by this Court.

This Court has, in a long line of decisions, consistently held that the expressions "Telugu", "Telangi" or any other word, when prefixed to the word "Mannewar", merely describe the linguistic, regional or religious identity of the members of the community and do not denote a distinct caste or tribe. In Anil Ramdas Mede v. State of Maharashtra and Ors., 2004 (4) ALL MR 639, this Court categorically held that the entries "Telangi", "Telgu Mannewar" and "Mannewar" are not contradictory entries, but refer to the very same "Mannewar" Scheduled Tribe. The Court observed that "Telangi" denotes the region from which the community originated, whereas "Telugu" merely indicates the language spoken by its members. The said principle has thereafter been consistently followed by this Court in several subsequent decisions.

Reference may also be made to the decision in Manish S/o Bansidhar Pancham Vs. State of Maharashtra and Ors. (Writ Petition No.5119 of 2016 decided on 10.04.2017), wherein this Court reiterated that "Mannewar" is a Scheduled Tribe specifically recognized under the Constitution (Scheduled Tribes) Order, 1950, and that the expressions "Telugu" or "Telangi" merely refer to the region of erstwhile Andhra Pradesh and cannot be treated as adverse caste entries. Similar observations have been made in Lisha Digambar Dudhare v. State of Maharashtra, 2017 (4) Mh.L.J. 895, wherein it has been held that pre-constitutional documents deserve greater probative value than the affinity test and that the mention of "Telugu" in later records cannot override earlier pre-constitutional entries supporting the tribe claim.

Recently, this Court has reiterated the same principle in the case of Vaibhav S/o Premraj Bhandari v. State of Maharashtra and Ors. (Writ Petition No.8197 of 2022, decided on 09.05.2024), while relying upon Anil Ramdas Mede (supra), holding that the expressions "Telangi", "Telugu Mannewar", "Te-Mannewar" and "Hindu Telgu Mannewar" merely describe the regional or linguistic identity of the community and cannot be construed as contradictory or adverse entries. The Division Bench observed that once the relationship with the ancestors is established and the documentary evidence consistently indicates the community as "Mannewar", the Committee cannot reject the claim merely because of such descriptive prefixes.

The aforesaid legal position completely answers the principal reason assigned by the respondent - Committee in the present matters. The Committee has treated the expression "Telangi Mannewar" as representing a caste distinct from "Mannewar", an approach which runs contrary to the consistent judicial pronouncements noticed hereinabove. The impugned orders, therefore, cannot be sustained on this count alone.

Equally unsustainable is the reliance placed by the respondent-Committee upon the entries "Kshatriya Mannewar" and "Mannewar Kshatriya". In our view, "Kshatriya" is not shown to be an independent caste in the present context. It ordinarily denotes one of the four Varnas, i.e., a social classification traditionally associated with occupation or status, and not a distinct caste or tribe. Merely because the expression "Kshatriya" is either prefixed or suffixed to "Mannewar", it cannot automatically lead to the conclusion that the entry refers to a caste different from "Mannewar" Scheduled Tribe. We find considerable substance in the submission advanced on behalf of the petitioners that "Kshatriya Mannewar" or "Mannewar Kshatriya" are descriptive expressions and not separate caste denominations. The respondent -Committee has recorded no material whatsoever to demonstrate that such expressions constitute an independent caste distinct from the "Mannewar" Scheduled Tribe.

Even otherwise, the evidentiary value assigned by the Committee to these entries is misplaced. The record reveals that there are only two entries referring to "Kshatriya Mannewar", one pertaining to the year 1950 and the other to the year 1953. Significantly, the latter document is admittedly post-Constitutional and, therefore, cannot carry the same evidentiary weight as genuine pre-constitutional records. Further, the petitioners have placed on record the registered sale deed dated 28.10.1942, a pre-constitutional public document, recording the caste simply as "Mannewar". This document is older than both the entries relied upon by the Committee and, applying the settled principles governing appreciation of documentary evidence in caste and tribe verification matters, deserves greater probative value. The Committee has assigned no convincing reason for discarding this earlier document while simultaneously treating the subsequent entries as determinative of the petitioners' social status.

It is by now well settled that pre-constitutional documentary evidence occupies the highest pedestal in adjudicating caste and tribe claims, particularly where such entries are found in public records maintained in the ordinary course of official business. Such documents are ordinarily free from any motive to secure future reservation benefits and, therefore, possess the highest degree of evidentiary value. Once such evidence reasonably supports the claim, the burden lies upon the Scrutiny Committee to demonstrate cogent reasons for rejecting it. The impugned orders do not disclose any such compelling reasons.

The respondent - Committee has further rejected the claim on the ground that the petitioners failed to establish affinity with the "Mannewar" Scheduled Tribe. We are unable to accept this reasoning as well. The law on the scope and relevance of the affinity test is no longer res integra. In Anand Vs. Committee for Scrutiny and Verification of Tribe Claims and others, (2012) 1 SCC 113, the Hon'ble Supreme Court held that while pre-independence documentary evidence deserves greater reliance because of its higher probative value, the affinity test is merely a corroborative tool and cannot be treated as a litmus test for deciding a tribe claim. The Hon’ble Supreme Court has further observed that, owing to migration, modernization, education and interaction with other communities, tribal communities inevitably undergo socio-cultural changes and may not continue to exhibit all their traditional customs and traits. Consequently, affinity cannot override reliable documentary evidence.

In the present case, the respondent-Committee has not identified any particular custom, ritual or social practice stated by the petitioners which is inconsistent with the characteristics of the "Mannewar" Scheduled Tribe. Nor has it considered the explanation furnished by the petitioners in response to the Vigilance Cell Report. The conclusion that the petitioners failed to establish affinity is thus founded on broad and unsupported observations rather than any reasoned analysis. Such an approach is contrary to the principles laid down by the Hon'ble Supreme Court in the case of Anand (supra) as well as the consistent view adopted by this Court.

We also find that the respondent-Committee has placed heavy reliance upon the decision in the case of Krishna Laxmiyya Lade v. State of Maharashtra (supra). In our considered opinion, the said decision does not advance the respondent's case. Each caste verification proceeding necessarily turns upon its own documentary evidence and factual matrix. More importantly, the subsequent decisions of this Court in Manish S/o Bansidhar Pancham (supra), Lisha Digambar Dudhare (supra), Vaibhav S/o Premraj Bhandari (supra), besides the earlier decision in Anil Ramdas Mede (supra), have consistently clarified that the expressions "Telugu", "Telangi" and allied descriptive prefixes do not create any inconsistency with the entry "Mannewar", and that pre-constitutional documentary evidence must receive precedence over speculative conclusions based on affinity.

Viewed from any angle, therefore, the reasons assigned by the respondent-Scrutiny Committee for discarding the petitioners' documentary evidence cannot be sustained. The Committee has misconstrued the descriptive expressions "Telangi" and "Kshatriya", ignored the binding judicial precedents governing the issue, accorded undue importance to comparatively weaker documentary evidence while overlooking older and more probative pre-constitutional records, and finally rejected the claim by placing unwarranted reliance upon the affinity test. The cumulative effect of these errors renders the impugned orders legally unsustainable.

In the backdrop of aforesaid discussion, we are satisfied that the petitioners have successfully established their claim of belonging to "Mannewar" Scheduled Tribe. The common order dated 19.09.2022 passed by the respondent – The Scheduled Tribe Certificate Scrutiny Committee, Amravati invalidating the petitioners’ tribe claim is hereby quashed and set aside. Respondent - The Scheduled Tribe Certificate Scrutiny Committee, Amravati is directed to issue Validity Certificates in favour of the petitioners certifying them as belonging to "Mannewar" Scheduled Tribe, within a period of eight weeks from the date of receipt of a copy of this judgment. Accordingly, the present Writ petitions are allowed.

Rule is made absolute in aforesaid terms. No order as to costs.