WP/7757/2024 of AJAY DATTATRAYA BANDEWAD Vs THE STATE OF MAHARASHTRA THROUGH ITS SECRETARY AND OTHERS on 20 December 2024

1) Ajay Dattatraya BandewadAge : 28 years, Occ. StudentR/o At Kolwadi Post Rokada Sawargaon Tq.Ahmedpur Dist.Latur. ...Petitioner

Versus

1) The State of MaharashtraThrough Its SecretaryTribal Development Department,Mantralay, Mumbai-32

2) The Scheduled Tribe CertificateVerification Committee, Kinwat Headquartered’at Aurangabad, through its Member Secretary,

3) Maharashtra Animal and Fishery Sciences University,Futala Lake Road, Seminary Hills, Nagpur, Maharashtra-440006

4) College of Veterniary and Animal Sciences,Kaulkhed Road, Nideban, Udgir,Tq.Udgir, Dist: Latur-413 517Through its Associate Dean. …Respondents …Advocate for Petitioner : Mr. Boinwad Omgashad B.AGP for Respondent No. 1 : Mr. V.M.Kagane Advocate for Respondent Nos. 3 and 4 : Mr. Krishna P. Rodge h/f Mr. Pratap G. Rodge 2 1116 .WP-7757-2024 .doc CORAM : S. G. MEHARE AND

SHAILESH P. BRAHME, JJ.

RESERVED ON : 11 DECEMBER 2024

PRONOUNDED ON : 20 DECEMBER 2024

JUDGMENT (Per : Shailesh P. Brahme,J)

. Heard

2. Rule is made returnable forthwith. Heard both sides finallyat the admission stage.

3. Petitioner is challenging judgment and order dated08.09.2023 passed by respondent no.2/Scrutiny Committeeconfiscating and invalidating the tribe certificate. He is alsosoliciting directions to the respondents nos. 3 and 4 to releasethe documents withheld by them.

4. Petitioner claims to be belonging to Scheduled Tribe KoliMahadeo. He was given admission through reserved category inthe respondent no. 4 / College for the courses of B.V.Sc andA.H. He had paid full tution fees as the certificate of validitywas not submitted.

5. Petitioner is relying on validity certificate issued to JyotiWaman Bandewad/ cousin aunt and the entries in the schoolrecord of his blood relatives. The genealogy produced by himbefore the committee has also been relied on to show his 3 1116 .WP-7757-2024 .doc relationship with Jyoti. The school entry of his father/Dattatrayaof the year 1980 is the oldest amongst other entries.

6. Learned Counsel for the petitioner Mr. Boinwad submitsthat Jyoti was issued with validity certificate after following dueprocedure of law and it is still intact. Hence that would enureto the benefit of the petitioner. It is further submitted thatrelationship of the Jyoti with the petitioner has not beendisputed before the Committee. The entries in the school recordof the blood relatives of the petitioner supports his case. Hewould further submit that the validity certificate of Jyoti hasbeen discarded by perverse reasons.

7. Learned Counsel for the petitioner also submits that duringthe vigilance enquiry, the validity certificates of Waman,Gangadhar, Rahul and Sopan were traced. Without granting anyopportunity to the petitioner, those were considered by thecommittee while rejecting the tribe claim. Those validities werealso not mentioned in the vigilance report. He submits thatmatter needs to be remanded to the committee for extendingopportunity to the petitioner to deal with the validities and hisrelationship with the holders.

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8. It is further argued that petitioner is entitled to receive thedocuments withheld by respondent nos.3 and 4. The reliance isplaced on the judgments of Hon’ble Supreme Court in thematter of Mrudula vs. State of Maharashtra in Special Leave toAppeal No. 15902/2023, Priyanka Balaji Wadikar and Anr. vs.State of Maharashtra in Civil Appeal No. 6482 of 2023, Saurabhvs. State of Maharashtra in Special leave to Appeal No. 17179-17180/2021, Barkha Rajesh Manik vs. State of Maharashtra &Ors. in Writ Petition No. 3464 of 2015 and Mayuri ShrikrishnaPunjarwad vs. The State of Maharashtra of this Court.

9. Per contra, AGP supports impugned judgment and order.He has tendered on record the original files of petitioner andvalidity holder Jyoti. It is submitted that Jyoti is not the bloodrelatives of the petitioner which can be demonstrated from thegenealogy given by the petitioner and his statement. It would bea fraud on the part of the petitioner to represent that Jyoti iscousin aunt. It is further submitted that in the case of Jyoti novigilance inquiry was conducted and banking on validities of herfather Waman and Rahul she was issued with validity certificate.It was not issued after following due procedure of law. It isfurther submitted that there is consistent incompatible schoolrecord against the petitioner. Only entry which supports the 5 1116 .WP-7757-2024 .doc claim is of his father of 1980. It is submitted that under factsand circumstances, affinity test was imperative and it wasagainst the petitioner.

10. Learned AGP submits that although committee referred tovalidities of four persons namely Waman, Gangadhar, Rahul andSopan, they are not actually pitted against petitioner.Independent of those validities, petitioner’s claim can be dealtwith. He would oppose the remanding the matter to thecommittee.

11. Learned Counsel Mr. Krishna Rodge submits that thepetitioner was being admitted to the college on the basis ofreservation. In case impugned judgment is confirmed by thisCourt then the petitioner is liable for the actions by followingjudgment of Hon’ble Supreme Court in the matter of Chairmanand Managing Director FCI and Ors. vs. Jagdish Balram Bahiraand Ors. reported in AIR 2017 SC 3271. It is submitted thatpetitioner is not entitled to the documents which are withheld.

12. We have considered rival submissions of the parties andgone through relevant papers from the original files submittedby the respondents.

13. Petitioner relied on validity certificate of Jyoti Waman 6 1116 .WP-7757-2024 .doc Bandewad being paternal side cousin aunt. He also relied onvarious school records. His fathers school entry of 1980 was theoldest amongst them. During vigilance, few more incompatibleschool record of the blood relatives of the petitioner was tracedwhich was older than school record of his father. Besides that,four validities were also traced but those were not mentioned inthe vigilance report. Only in the impugned judgment, those arereferred which are as follows.v-dz nkok dR;kZps uko vtZnkjk’khnkO;kpkfu.kZ;kpk fnukad S’ksjk

14. It is vehemently contended by the petitioner that he issurprised by the validities discovered and used against himdirectly in the judgment. The learned AGP in this regard hasfairly admitted that these validities were not disclosed in thevigilance report of the petitioner. The committee has onlyrecorded in its paragraph no. 7 that above validities of theblood relatives of the petitioner were traced. No further finding,much less to the detriment of the petitioner has been recordedby the committee. These validities are not contrary to therecord. Learned AGP conceded the fact that the matter can beconsidered independently on merit by ignoring those validities.

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15. Under above facts and circumstances we do not find itnecessary to remand the matter to the committee. No prejudicewould be caused to the petitioner. Those validities were notvoluntarily relied by him. Rather he preferred not to rely thosevalidities and relied on validity of Jyoti Vaman Bandewad. Wepropose to consider the matter on merits ignoring thosevalidities. Therefore the prayer for remand is rejected.

16. The relationship of Jyoti with the petitioner is highlydisputed by the respondents. The petitioner relied on thegenealogy which was provided in form F before the committeeto show his relationship with Jyoti.

17. It has been pointed out by learned AGP that Jyoti did notfile any affidavit before the Committee disclosing herrelationship with the petitioner. We have verified the said factsfrom the original papers. We came across altogether differentgenealogy given by petitioner himself on 22.11.2018. In the saidgenealogy the branch of Jyoti’s father is not figuring out. Thefollowing genealogy was given on 22.11.2018.

18. The petitioner is relying on inconsistent genealogies onegiven on affidavit and another was given before VigilanceOfficer. Waman is not seen in the above genealogy.Jyoti is the 8 1116 .WP-7757-2024 .doc daughter of Waman. More surprisingly in the statement of thepetitioner recorded on 22.11.2018, it was admitted by him thatgreat grandfather Dattu had only one son Bhujang who was nothaving brothers or sisters. This disclosure is not only damagingbut bordering the fraud. He himself has shown Waman,father ofjyoti as real brother of Bhujang on affidavit. Learned AGP isright in his submission that Jyoti is not the blood relative of thepetitioner. The petitioner has misled the committee.

19. It is transpired from the original record that no vigilancewas conducted in the matter of Jyoti. In her case reliance wasplaced on the school record and validities of her brother andfather. We find that her relationship with the petitioner isdoubtful. Her validity certificate would not enure to the benefitof the petitioner.

20. The school record of petitioner’s father of 1980 is theoldest one which is relied. The school record of the bloodrelatives traced during the vigilance inquiry is contrary to thetribe claim disclosing caste as Hindu Koli. His reply to thevigilance report is not satisfactory for the entries of BalajiShamrao Bandewad and Waman Pandhari Bandewad. Theexplanation was that due to illiteracy they were recorded to beKoli. In the absence of reliable material, we need to consider 9 1116 .WP-7757-2024 .doc the affinity test. The petitioner could not withstand the samewhich is apparent from the original file. Though affinity test isnot the litmus test, the result of the affinity test carriessignificance in given facts and circumstances.

21. Our attention is adverted to the ratio laid down in thematter of Shubham Kishor Suryawanshi and other Vs. State ofMaharashtra and Anr. in Writ Petition No. 4350 of 2024 of thisCourt. The Coordinate Bench made following observations :

“12 If the entire favourable record produced by the petitioners is of recentperiod, from the year 1979 onwards, obviously, it will have inherent limitation insubstantiating a caste or tribe claim, inasmuch as there is every possibility ofsuch entries having been made objectively to derive the benefit. Therefore,although merely because this is a post independent record it cannot be out-rightlyrejected, application of affinity test would become imperative. We, therefore, areof a firm view that no fault can be found with respondent No.2-ScrutinyCommittee in applying the affinity test.”

22. The validity of Jyoti is not reliable. Her relationship withthe petitioner is doubtful. The petitioner’s inconsistent stand ledus to infer that it is apparent fraud on his part to derive thebenefit of validity of Jyoti to show her as the cousin aunt. Weare not inclined to grant discretionary relief to the petitioner inwrit jurisdiction. We do not find that there is perversity orpatent illegality in rejecting the tribe claim.

23. The petitioner had secured admission to the collegethrough reservation. He is bound to face the consequences as 10 1116 .WP-7757-2024 .doc laid down by Hon’ble Supreme Court in the matter of Union ofIndia Vs. FCI. The orders of the Supreme Court in the matter ofSaurabh (supra) and in the matter of Priyanka (supra) wouldassist him to the extent of receiving the original documentsother than degree certificate of B.V.Sc and A.H. We thereforepass following order :

ORDER

i)Writ Petition is partly allowed.

ii)The petitioner shall be entitled to receive documents ofleaving certificate and other documents not related to hisgraduation in B.V.Sc and A.H.

iii)The Rule stands discharged in the above manner.

[ SHAILESH P. BRAHME, J.]

[ S. G. MEHARE, J.]

V.S.J.