'Big Racket For Bogus Community Certificates In Tamil Nadu' : Madras High Court Asks State To Take Action

Noting that there was a big racket going on in the State, the bench of Justice SM Subramaniam and Justice K Rajasekar observed that if proper action were not taken, it would defeat the very object of bringing in reservation. The court thus asked the State to ensure that only genuine persons who belong to the community are entitled to avail the benefits of reservation.

“There is a big racket going on in community certificate matters and the State Government has to initiate all appropriate actions to ensure that issuance of false/bogus certificates are stopped forthwith, failing which the very objective of reservations under the Indian Constitution will be defeated. The genuinity in the matter of grant of reservation under the Indian Constitution is to be protected,” the court said.

The court noted that through the bogus community certificate, the persons were availing reservation and such other facilities under different government schemes. The court thus directed the government to ensure that the correctness of certificates is verified. The court added that when a reference certificate was given to the authorities, the authenticity of the same is verified and if found incorrect, action should be taken to cancel the reference certificate.

“Even if a reference certificate has been given to the authorities, the authenticity of those certificates are also to be verified and in the event of identifying that the said certificates are incorrect, bogus or otherwise, actions are to be initiated to cancel the community certificate and to prosecute those offenders who are involved in securing such bogus community certificates,” the court said.

The court was hearing a petition filed by Samburanam against the order of the District Collector rejecting the application for a community certificate. Samburanam had submitted that they belong to “Kurumans”, a Scheduled Tribe community. She had thus applied for issuance of the community certificate to her kids on the basis of the community certificate of her brother and his son. The application was however rejected. Though an appeal was filed before the District Collector, the appeal was also dismissed.

The State Government Pleader informed the court that Samburanam's son had already secured a Most Backward Class certificate in 2009 and when that was in force, they could not claim a Scheduled Tribe certificate now. It was further informed that upon enquiry, it was found that the petitioner's family did not belong to the Kurumans community.

The court noted that though an enquiry notice was served to Samburanam, she failed to appear before the authorities or produce any documents relied on by her. The court also noted that, as per the school records, the petitioner's kids belonged to the Most Backward Class community. The court thus concluded that the petitioner had failed to establish that she belongs to the Scheduled Caste community.

The court directed the District Collector to issue necessary instruction to all Revenue Divisional Officer/Tahsildars to ensure that the Scheduled Tribe community certificate issued in doubtful manner are reviewed and all appropriate action are taken to ascertain the genuineness of the certificate. The court further directed that wherever it was identified that the community certificate was a false or bogus one, criminal prosecution should be launched and the certificate should be cancelled as per law.

Recently, the Supreme Court had also expressed a similar concern regarding bogus caste certificate rackets in Tamil Nadu.

'Caste Certificate Seems To Be Big Problem In Tamil Nadu; There Appears To Be A Huge Racket' : Supreme Court

Counsel for the Petitioner: Mr. M. Radhakrishnan

Counsel for the Respondent: Mr. A. Selvendran Special Government Pleader

Case Title: V. Samburanam v. District Collector

Citation: 2025 LiveLaw (Mad) 107

Case No: W.P.No.35997 of 2024