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Caste Status cannot be changed by inter-cast marriage to claim reservation benefits
The Hon’ble division bench in the High Court of Judicature Madras comprising of Hon'ble Justices R Subbiah and C Saravanan passed an order last month clarifying that marrying a person of scheduled caste does not entitle the person to claim any benefits of the reservation while pronouncing that "By changing one’s faith or by marrying a person belonging to another community, one does not change his or her community."
Hence, by the effect of this judgment, a person cannot avail of reservation benefits by the virtue of being married to a scheduled caste.
The Hon’ble division bench in the present case was dealing with an appeal initiated by Oriental Insurance Co. Ltd. in challenging a single judge order which was in favor of the woman who was appointed as an assistant typist in the company which was a post reserved for the candidature of scheduled caste. The woman belonging to the Vanniya Kula Shatriya community obtained a scheduled caste certificate from the Tahsildar post marriage with a person from the Hindu Adi Dravida Scheduled Caste in 1977. She secured the appointment in the post in 1979 following which the Collector issued a show-cause notice to cancel the caste certificate.
Subsequently, Oriental Insurance issued a charge memo accusing the woman of misrepresentation whilst the appointment. A writ petition was instituted against the said charge memo which was dismissed and the appeal against that was disposed of noting that the state has no jurisdiction to declare that non-SC/ST on marriage SC/ST will be deemed to be SC/ST after marriage. While passing the 2009 order, the court stated that the employee hadn’t committed any misrepresentation or fraud. The single judge observed the same in the 2015 order.
The ruling of the Division Bench:
The Division Bench relied on the Supreme Court judgment Kumari Madhuri Patil v. Commr. Tribal Development where it noted that the caste certificates must be called in for verification at least 6 months prior to the appointment.
"In the present case, verification was done even before the 1st respondent was appointed. The Tahsildar, Fort Tondiarpet vide letter dated 13.11.1978 in a reply to a query from the District Employment Officer vide letter dated 12.12.1977 had also confirmed that the Hindu Adi Dravida Scheduled Caste Community was issued to the 1st respondent in line with the order in Government Letter No. MS 493/BCI/76 dated 11.6.1976. This verification was done prior to the appointment of the 1st respondent by the Appellant during 1977. The 1st respondent was thereafter appointed later vide letter of appointment dated 22 1.1979."
However, if the certificate was falsely obtained, such an appointment would be liable to be canceled.
The High Court also emphasized the ruling of Food Corporation of India v. Jagdish Balaram Bahira which laid down that Government issues letters would not help claim any benefits of reservation if such letters were against the constitutional norms.
"The certificate was obtained based on a clarification of the State Government which has been held to be not applicable to the 1st respondent. Though the 1st respondent has not played fraud while obtaining the aforesaid community certificate, the fact remains that she is not a person who was eligible for appointment against the post reserved for Scheduled case/Scheduled Tribe. Scheduled Caste Adi Dravidar Community certificate ought not to have been issued to the petitioner by the Tahsildar Tandiarpet Taluk."
The court then proceeded to pass an order against the employee.
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