Unless there is a foolproof system to issue community certificates only to genuine applicants, no time limit or limitation can be prescribed by the courts for subjecting those certificates to verification if any doubt is raised or a complaint is received regarding their genuineness, the Madras High Court has ruled.
A Division Bench of Justices S.S. Sundar and N. Senthilkumar held that the community certificates of those who got employed before 1995 could also be verified any time and that the inquiry regarding the genuineness of the certificates could continue even after the retirement of the employee concerned.
Recalling the Supreme Court ruling that had termed the conduct of gaining public employment with fake community certificates as an “egregious fraud on the Constitution,” the Bench said, those who had deprived jobs to genuine Scheduled Caste/Scheduled Tribe candidates “do not deserve sympathy or indulgence from courts.”
“When serious consequences should follow on finding that an employee who secured employment under SC/ST quota does not belong to SC/ST community, this court cannot suggest closing of an enquiry merely because the enquiry was prolonged till the retirement of the employee. There is no statutory provision to prevent scrutiny or verification after retirement of the individual,” the Bench wrote.
The verdict was delivered while dismissing writ petitions filed by three retired employees of Chennai Port Trust (CPT) and Reserve Bank of India (RBI) challenging the orders of the State Level Scrutiny Committee (SLSC) that the scheduled tribe community certificates used by them to secure employment, in the 1980s, were fake.
The petitioners had refused to cooperate with the inquiry conducted by the scrutiny committee and relied upon three Supreme Court orders wherein it was held that conduct of inquiry regarding genuineness of community certificates, even after retirement from service, would only be academic and serve no purpose.
They also cited an Office Memorandum issued by the Parliamentary Committee on the Welfare of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes on December 24, 2020 directing the SLSCs to verify the community certificates of only those employees who had been appointed after 1995 and pointed out that they were appointed much before that.
However, the Bench led by Justice Sundar refused to accept any of their contentions. It said the Supreme Court orders relied upon by the petitioners could not be followed since they had been passed without noticing binding precedents laid down by the Supreme Court in Kumari Madhuri Patil, R. Vishwantha Pillai and Food Corporation of India cases.
In Kumari Madhuri Patil’s case, the apex court had held that any person who had got admission in an educational institution or appointment in a government job on the basis of a false claim regarding his community could not be allowed to enjoy any privilege as a result of such admission/employment.
“Therefore, We have no hesitation to hold that the three judgments, relied upon by the petitioners, may not be binding precedents... Verification, once started, shall continue till its logical end and retirement of an employee, during enquiry as to his community status, shall not affect the proceedings,” the Division Bench wrote.
Further, stating that an Office Memorandum could not whittle down the binding precedents laid down by the Supreme Court, the Bench said: “There cannot be an official instruction on the interpretation of the judgment so as to limit its operation. This is a mischief that has been done by way of the 2020 Office Memorandum.”
