Mangal Dagadu More vs State Of Maharashtra & Ors.

(Per Dr Neela Gokhale, J.)

Rule. Rule made returnable forthwith. By consent of the parties, the matter is heard finally.

By this Writ Petition filed under Article 226 of the Constitution of India, the Petitioner seeks to quash and set aside the order dated 11^th February 2022 passed by Respondent No. 2, the Scheduled Tribe Scrutiny Committee, Pune, which invalidated the Petitioner's caste certificate following her superannuation from the post of peon with Respondent No. 3, the Primary Health Centre.

The facts leading to the present proceedings are that the Petitioner claims to belong to the Thakar Tribe. The competent authority granted her a caste certificate dated 30^th January 2009, certifying that she belonged to the Thakar Tribe. She was employed as a peon at Respondent No. 3, Primary Health Centre. By an application dated 7^th October 2009, the Petitioner sought verification of her certificate from the Scheduled Tribes Scrutiny Committee. She submitted evidence, including her school records and revenue records, prior to the deemed date, i.e., 1918, 1919, 1924, 1930, 1932, 1935 and 1940, in favour of her blood relatives on the paternal side, showing their duly recorded caste as Thakar. She also furnished the caste validity certificate of her real brother, granted by Respondent No. 2 Committee, following a thorough vigilance enquiry and in accordance with law.

Earlier on a very peculiar reason, her caste certificate was invalidated by an order dated 4^th November 2019 of the Scrutiny Committee on a technical ground that it was not in the prescribed Form-C. She was given liberty to obtain a fresh caste certificate in the prescribed form and to file a fresh application for its validation before the Respondent No.2 Committee.

On 10^th November 2020, she obtained a fresh caste certificate from the competent authority in the prescribed form, which shows that she belonged to the Thakar Scheduled Tribe. She also submitted the caste validity certificate of her real brother, namely Murlidhar Dagduji More, issued by the Respondent No.2 Committee. On 31^st May 2020, after 38 years of unblemished service, she superannuated. However, because she was not issued a caste validity certificate, she was made to forgo her right to be considered for promotion. In fact, she was never considered for promotion solely because her validity certificate was not available. This apart her grievance is that, even after her retirement, the pensionary benefits, including gratuity and other retirement benefits, have been withheld for want of the caste validity certificate.

On 20th December 2021, the Committee referred the Petitioner’s case to the vigilance cell. She was called for hearing on 9^th February 2022, and pursuant to that hearing, the Committee invalidated her tribe claim by its order dated 11^th February 2022. It is this order which is assailed in the present petition.

Mr R. K. Mendadkar, learned counsel, appeared for the Petitioner, and Mr Aditya Deolekar, learned AGP, represented the State.

Mr Mendadkar has assailed the decision-making process of the Respondent No. 2 Committee, contending that the Committee failed to consider the evidence, including a plethora of documents clearly demonstrating that the Petitioner belonged to the Thakar community. He submitted that the order invalidating the Petitioner’s caste certificate is contrary to well-settled principles of law. Documentary evidence predating the Constitution, relating to the Petitioner’s blood relatives in the years 1918, 1919, 1923, 1924, 1930, 1931, 1932, 1934, 1935, 1939, 1940 and 1944, in the form of birth certificates, death certificates and school records, as well as several mutation entries, have consistently recorded the Petitioner’s blood relatives as belonging to the Thakar community. Moreover, the Committee failed to consider that the Petitioner’s ‘real brother’ was also issued a caste validity certificate as belonging to the Thakar community. In these circumstances, Mr Mendadkar submitted that the impugned order was passed without application of mind and deserves to be quashed and set aside.

Mr Mendadkar further stated that the Petitioner is now superannuated. She has not received any retiral benefits due to the invalidation of her caste validity certificate. She is suffering from knee trauma and has been undergoing treatment since 2021. She was also hospitalised in March 2023. Because of her medical condition, she was unable to assail the order earlier but has now sought the said relief by filing the present petition. The delay in approaching the Court is thus inadvertent and due to medical reasons. Mr Mendadkar thus urges this Court to allow the petition and grant the reliefs as prayed.

Mr Deolekar, learned AGP, has vehemently contested the petition supporting the impugned order and prayed that it be rejected.

We have heard the learned counsel for the parties and perused the record. At the outset, we may observe that the issue that at the fag end of the service and/or upon retirement merely for the reason that a caste validity certificate was not submitted when the employee was permitted to discharge the duties throughout and superannuated, is no longer res integra. This Court in Ratnamala Anilkumar Swami vs. State of Maharashtra and Anr.^{11.Writ Petition No. 2684 of 2026 decided on 10 August 2026}, while referring to a series of decisions of the Supreme Court as well as of this Court, held that the employer cannot deny the grant of family pension to the Petitioner therein, which being the recognition of the long service rendered by her, and that the employee cannot be left in penury, destitution and suffering in the twilight of her life, throughout the Petitioner’s service, the absence of a caste validity certificate was never held against her, nor were any disciplinary proceedings initiated. Only after her retirement did Respondent No. 3 point out the invalidation of the caste certificate.

It is not the Respondent’s case that it had, in any manner, invoked the provisions of Section 10 of the Maharashtra Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, De-notified Tribes (Vimukta Jatis), Nomadic Tribes, Other Backwards Classes and Special Backwards Category (Regulation of Issuance and Verification of) Caste Certificate Act, 2000, to discharge her from service in the absence of validation of her certificate. It is an admitted fact that the State Government, vide Government Resolution dated 27^th December 2019, has taken a policy decision to protect the services of candidates who belong to the Scheduled Tribes in circumstances of invalidation of their caste certificate, as a humanitarian measure, for the long years of service rendered by such employees. The relevant paragraphs No. 4.1 and 4.2 of the GR dated 27^th December 2019 read as below:

Thus, it appears that the State Government was concerned with the plight of employees who suffered because they had not procured a caste validity certificate, or because the certificate was invalidated by the scrutiny committee only after long years of service had been rendered by the said employees. There are a series of decisions in this regard.

Further to the decisions cited at the Bar, it is clear that such issues had reached the Courts. We find that a Division Bench of this Court in the case of Prakash S/o Fulchand Barwal & Ors. vs. The State of Maharashtra and Ors^{22.Writ Petition No.3718 of 1994 decided on 12.08.2010.}. considered a similar situation, wherein the petitioner, who belonged to the Scheduled Tribe category, had expired. He was appointed as a peon in 1988 against a post reserved for Scheduled Tribes. His Caste Certificate was referred to the Caste Scrutiny Committee for verification, which invalidated his claim vide order dated 30^th September 1989. Consequently, his services were terminated vide order dated 10^th December 1989. The appeal preferred against the said order was also dismissed. He expired during the pendency of the said petition. In these circumstances, the Court recognised the entitlement of the legal heirs to the grant of family pension. The relevant observations read thus:

[emphasis supplied]

The decision in Prakash s/o Fulchand Barwal (supra) was followed by the Co-ordinate Bench of this Court in the case of Saraswati w/o Nagnath Mupde vs. The State of Maharashtra & Ors.^{33.Writ Petition No.7986 of 2020 decided on 02.05.2024.}, in which the husband of the Petitioner was working as a teacher and had been appointed to a post reserved for the Scheduled Tribe category. His Caste Certificate was invalidated by the Caste Scrutiny Committee. Considering the decision in Prakash s/o Fulchand Barwal (supra), the Court made the following observations:

In a recent decision in the case of Manda w/o Prakash Sonawane vs. The State of Maharashtra and Ors.^{44.Writ Petition No.13426 of 2024 decided on 15.10.2024.}, the deceased husband of the petitioner therein was the only bread earner. He was selected and appointed to a post reserved for the backward category. He retired on 30^th June 2020 and passed away on 18^th July 2022. There was no dispute regarding pensionary benefits and entitlement to retiral benefits. The employer, however, took a stand that the same would not be payable to the legal representatives of the petitioner, since the deceased employee did not tender the Caste Validity Certificate, and since the employee’s claim of belonging to the reserved category was not validated, the petitioner would not be entitled to the grant of family pension. It is in these circumstances that a Division Bench of this Court in the case of Manda w/o Prakash Sonawane (supra), relying on the decision of this Court in the matter of Kamlabai w/o Shaphadu Salve Vs. the State of Maharashtra & Ors.^{55.Writ Petition No.4624 of 2021 decided on 01.10.2021.}, and also the Supreme Court in the matter of Chairman and Managing Director, Food Corporation of India and Ors. Vs. Jagdish Balaram Bahira and Ors.^{66.2017 (8) SCC 670} recognized the entitlement to family pension and other reliefs and made the following observations:

Recently the Supreme Court, in the matter of Surekha Baljorsingh Thakur vs. Caste Scrutiny Committee and Anr.^{77.Special Leave to Appeal (C) No(s). 15632 of 2021 decided on 1 April 2024}, while exercising its powers although under Article 142 of the Constitution of India, directed that the Appellant therein is entitled to pensionary benefits because she had rendered long years of service, even though her caste certificate was invalidated after she superannuated.

Considering the aforesaid consistent view taken by the Supreme Court as well as this Court, we are of the opinion that the Petitioner cannot be deprived of her retiral benefits solely on the ground of the post-retirement invalidation of her caste certificate.

In these circumstances, the petition deserves to be allowed. The judgment and order dated 11^th February 2022 is quashed and set aside.

Respondent No.3 is directed to release the pensionary benefits, gratuity amount and other retiral benefits entitled to her within a period of three weeks from the date on which this order is uploaded along with interest at the rate of 8% per annum from the date such payments were due.

Rule is accordingly made absolute.