Collectors to probe caste claims: Hyderabad High Court

Hyderabad: The Hyderabad High Court has made it clear that it is mandatory for district collectors to conduct inquiry by themselves and publish the notification in the District Gazette whenever they find that a SC or ST certificate is found to be fake.

A division bench comprising Justice P.V. Sanjay Kumar and Justice P. Keshava Rao was dismissing a petition by secretary, ministry of railways, and South Central Railway (SCR) challenging an order by the Hyderabad bench of the Central Administrative Tribunal in suspending an order dismissing one S. Lakshman Rao from service on the ground that he had obtained the job by submitting a fake caste certificate.

Mr Lakshman Rao was inducted into the railways in 1996 in the Scheduled Tribe (ST) quota. His claim was that he belonged to the Bentho Oriya community, a Scheduled Tribe. A discreet inquiry was ordered by the district collector, Srikakulam, through the mandal revenue officer, Tekkali. Following this, the collector informed the railways in 2004 that the inquiry had revealed that the caste certificate produced by the applicant did not find place in the records.

Based on the report of the collector, the railways dismissed Mr Lakshman Rao from service. He moved the tribunal which suspended the dismissal order, holding that the procedure prescribed in the AP (Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Backward Classes) Regulation of Issue of Community Certificates Act, 1993 and the rules were not adhered to in the context of the ST certificate produced by the applicant, when it was doubted. 

The tribunal also held that the Collector was not involved in the actual exercise though Section 5 of the Act of 1993 mandates that the collector is the proper authority to inquire into the correctness of a caste certificate.

Aggrieved by the decision of the tribunal, the railway ministry and the SCR moved the High Court seeking to vacate the suspension order.

While upholding the order of the tribunal, the bench held that the tribunal was correct in its finding that the unorthodox approach adopted by the collector in asking the mandal revenue officer to undertake an inquiry does not have any value.