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Synopsis

The Supreme Court has recently provided a respite to a reserved category candidate whose admission to Mumbai's prestigious Sir J J Institute of Applied Arts was cancelled due to delay in furnishing caste validity certificate, issued more than nine months after the request.

A bench of Justices A S Bopanna and P S Narasimha directed the Institute to allow Bhushan to attend the college and carry on the educational activities which would remain subject to the final outcome of the instant plea.

The court decided to examine the plea against the Bombay High Court's order dismissing his writ petition by holding that the time limit of three months prescribed to decide the claim for issuance of Caste Validity Certificate is directory in nature and not mandatory.

Upon hearing the petitioner's counsel Nishant Katneshwarkar, court directed that there shall be an interim stay of the Bombay High Court's order of October 11, 2023 passed as also the order of September 27, 2023 canceling the admission, issued by In charge Dean of the institute.

The court also issued notice to the Maharashtra government and the Institute among others on the special leave petition by Bhushan.

In his plea the petitioner contended that in the Sub rule 5 of Rule 18 of Maharashtra Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, De-notified Tribes, (Vimukta Jatis), Nomadic Tribes, Other Backward Classes and Special Backward Classes and Special Backward Category (Regulation and issuance and Verification of) Caste Certificate Rules, 2012, it is mentioned that the Scrutiny Committee shall take its decision about the validity of Caste Certificate within a period of three months and in exceptional circumstances an additional period of two months may be taken by the Scrutiny Committee. 

"Despite that, the Caste Validity Certificate of the petitioner was issued by the Scrutiny Committee after a period of nine months, thereby causing the issuance of the said certificate after the cut off date of August 14, 2023," the plea said.

The plea pointed out that in Subsection 4 of Section 6 of Maharashtra Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, De-notified Tribes, (Vimukta Jatis), Nomadic Tribes, Other Backward Classes and Special Backward Classes and Special Backward Category (Regulation of Issuance and Verification of) Caste Certificate Act, 2000, it is mentioned that the Scrutiny Committee shall follow such procedure for verification of the Caste Certificate and adhere to the time limit for verification and grant of validity certificate as prescribed.

The petitioner, who belonged to Gawali Caste, submitted that there was no fault on his part in submitting the caste validity certificate after the Cut Off date.

He stated that the caste certificate for “Gawali” Caste from Reserved category of Nomadic Tribe (B) was issued by the Sub Divisional Officer, Murtajapur in the name of petitioner on December 17, 2019. He filed a claim for obtaining Caste Validity Certificate before District Caste Certificate Scrutiny Committee, Akola on November 30, 2022 which was well within the time as because of Covid-19 

He submitted that his certificate was issued two days after the cut-off date. After cancellation of his admission on September 27, 2023, he stated that he would suffer the loss of one academic year.

Case Title: Bhushan Vs State of Maharashtra & Ors