Ambiguity May Lead To Denial Of Basic Rights: Madras High Court Calls For Increased Caution In Granting/Cancelling Community Certificates

In setting aside the cancellation of the petitioner's community certificate, a bench of Justice SM Subramaniam and Justice V Lakshminarayanan stressed that the authorities must go through every document carefully and remove ambiguity as any ambiguity would result in the denial of the basic right of the person seeking the community certificate.

“Grant of community certificate or cancellation of community certificate would have a larger repercussion and will affect the future generation of the family concerned. Therefore, the authorities competent while conducting an enquiry are expected to be cautious and each and every document produced by the parties is to be considered and a finding is to be made so as to remove any ambiguity in respect of the decision to be taken either to grant or cancel the community certificate. Any ambiguity would result in denial of basic right to the person, who seeks community certificate from the authorities,” the court observed.

The court was hearing a plea by P Maheswari President of G Kalluppatti Panchayat. It was submitted that Maheswari, who belonged to the “Kuravan” community (a scheduled caste community), had participated in the local body elections after getting the community certificate.

It was argued that a rival candidate who was unsuccessful in the elections had raised a complaint saying that Maheswari had submitted a false community certificate and seeking actions to remove Maheswari from the post of President.

It was submitted that on such basis, the District Level Vigilance Committee, headed by the District Collector, conducted an enquiry based on the complaint and cancelled Maheswari's community certificate.

When Maheswari challenged this before the High Court, the High Court remanded the matter back to the authorities and ordered that a fresh final order should be passed after obtaining a report from the Vigilance Cell and following the procedure prescribed under the Government Order of Adi Dravidar and Tribal Welfare Department.

However, it was argued that the Vigilance Committee once again cancelled Maheswari's community certificate.

Accordingly, Maheswari challenged the impugned order contending that the Vigilance Committee had failed to consider the documents produced by her and that there were no findings concerning the sanctity and validity of the documents produced by her to establish her community.

The State submitted that there was no infirmity and the order, which was passed after following due procedure and detailed appreciation of the customary practices prevailing in the Kuravan community had sufficient evidentiary support.

The court noted that though there was no doubt that the Committee had considered the report of the Vigilance Cell and followed the procedures as per the Government Orders, there was neither any discussion about the documents/findings of the Vigilance Cell nor any appreciation of evidence produced before the Committee.

The court also noted that Maheswari had submitted 62 documents to establish her case and none of the documents were referred to in the impugned order. Further, the court also noted that though the Anthropologist had voluntarily submitted a report, the same was not even referred to or considered in the impugned order.

The court observed that when such voluntary reports were given, there was no impediment in the Committee considering the same unless it was found that there was no merit in the report.

The court added that when there were reports in favour of and against the petitioner, both had to be considered and findings had to be given based on which the decision to cancel the community certificate was taken.

Thus, considering the present case as an exception, the court remanded the matter back to the Committee and directed it to go into all the related documents and pass a reasoned order for concluding the proceedings.

Counsel for the Petitioner: Mr.R.Gandhi Senior Advocate

Counsel for the Respondent: Mr.Veerakathiravan Additional Advocate General assisted by Mr.N.Satheesh Kumar Additional Government Pleader, Mr.G.Thalaimutharasu

Citation: 2023 LiveLaw (Mad) 385

Case Title: P.Maheswari v The Secretary to Government and Others

Case No: W.P.(MD).No.12195 of 2023