Hyderabad: The Telangana High Court on Monday said that disciplinary action cannot be taken against government servants on the ground that they had submitted a false caste certificate to get employment until the district collector decides that the certificate was illegal and void.
Justice Abhinand Kumar Shavili was dealing a petition filed by constable S. Ajay Chander of Mancherial district seeking to quash a charge memo issued by the Ninnel mandal tahsildar on the grounds that he had submitted a false caste certificate to get the job under the BC-B quota.
The charge memo said Mr Chander belonged to the ‘Reddy Gandla’ caste, which does not come under the BC category, Mr Chander had applied for reservations by stating that he belonged to the Gandla community.
Mr Chander’s contention was that the tahsildar was not the competent authority to refer to disciplinary action against him. He submitted that the regulations covering issue of community certificates said the district collector was the competent authority to cancel a caste certificate after consideration of the report submitted by the district-level scrutiny committee after inquiry.
He said that unless the caste certificate was cancelled by the Collector, it remained valid. In his case, the Mancherial collector had neither cancelled his caste certificate nor constituted the scrutiny committee.
Considering these issues, the court allowed the plea of Mr Chander and set aside the charge memo. The court gave liberty to the respondent to initiate disciplinary action against Mr Chander in accordance with the law only after the Mancherial collector cancelled the caste certificate issued in favour of the petitioner.
