January 07, 2002

‘10’

NCSCST FAVOURS EARLY ENACTMENT OF CENTRAL LEGISLATION TO CURB THE MENACE OF FALSE COMMUNITY CERTIFICATES

    The National Commission for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, NCSCST, has favoured early enactment of a Central legislation to curb the increasing menace of false community certificates. It has been getting a large number of representations with regards to people having got admissions or appointments based on false caste certificates. The Commission under Article 338(5) of the Constitution has taken up enquiries in thousands of cases of complaints of false caste certificates, either directly or through its State Offices or the concerned agencies of the State Government. It has so far detected 2,580 cases of false caste certificates in various states. The highest number of cases of false caste certificates numbering over 1,100 have been detected in Tamil Nadu followed by Maharashtra with about 600 cases and Kerala with over 300 cases followed by West Bengal with 248, Andhra Pradesh with 237 and Tripura 111. The Commission has cancelled and confiscated 330 false caste certificates while benefits acquiring due to false certificates have been withdrawn in 218 cases. There are 513 cases of false certificates pending in various courts while the Commission is trying to get stay granted by the courts vacated in 426 cases.

    Govt. of India has been issuing circulars from time to time laying down procedure for issue of community certificate and also indicating the authorities empowered to issue community certificates. The Supreme Court in Madhuri Patil vs. Government of Maharashtra case, laid down detailed procedure and guidelines to be followed for issue, verification and cancellation of community certificates. The Supreme Court also directed all the State Governments to constitute a Scrutiny Committee for verification of community certificates and laid down that the orders of the Scrutiny Committee shall be final conclusive subject to the proceedings under Article 226 of the Constitution. It was also laid down that the High courts would dispose off these cases as expeditiously as possible within a period of 3 months and no further appeal would lie to the Division Bench, except SLP under Article 136 to the Supreme Court.