Shrinivas Ramakant Padalwar v. The State Of Maharashtra Through Its Secretary And Another
2025:BHC-AUG:19790-DB WP-8855-2025+++.odt
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE OF BOMBAY
BENCH AT AURANGABAD 944 WRIT PETITION NO. 8855 OF 2025 SHRINIVAS RAMAKANT PADALWAR
VERSUS
THE STATE OF MAHARASHTRA AND ANOTHER WITH WRIT PETITION NO. 8856 OF 2025 PRASHANT DATTATRAY PADALWAR
VERSUS
THE STATE OF MAHARASHTRA AND ANOTHER WITH WRIT PETITION NO. 8857 OF 2025 PRAJAKTA BALAJI PADALWAR
VERSUS
THE STATE OF MAHARASHTRA AND ANOTHER WITH WRIT PETITION NO. 8858 OF 2025 BALAJI SHIVAJI PADALWAR
VERSUS
THE STATE OF MAHARASHTRA AND OTHERS WITH WRIT PETITION NO. 8860 OF 2025 SHIVNANDA PANDURANG PADALWAR
VERSUS
THE STATE OF MAHARASHTRA AND OTHERS
(( 2 )) WITH WRIT PETITION NO. 8859 OF 2025 MANOJ BABURAO PADALWAR
VERSUS
THE STATE OF MAHARASHTRA AND OTHERS ....
Mr. P. V. Jadhavar, Advocate for the Petitioners Mr. S. P. Sonpawale, AGP for the Respondents - State in all Petitions Ms Yogita S. Thorat, Advocate for Respondent No.3 in Writ Petition No.8858 of 2025 ....
CORAM : MANISH PITALE AND Y. G. KHOBRAGADE, JJ.
DATE : 25.07.2025 ORDER (Per- Y. G. Khobragade, J.) :- 1.
Heard the learned counsel for the Petitioners and the learned AGP for the Respondents, at length.
2.
Since the common question arises in all these Petitions, the same are taken together.
3.
In all these Petitions, the Petitioners who are the paternal blood relatives, take exception to the impugned order dated 02.05.2025 passed by Respondent No.2 Scrutiny Committee, thereby invalidated their claim of "Mannervarlu" Scheduled Tribe.
(( 3 )) 4.
As per the genealogical tree, the forefathers of the Petitioners, namely, Malkaji Eknath Padalwar, had six sons, namely Venkanna, Eknath, Jaywant, Gangaram, Virbhadra and Shankar. 5.
Sanjay, Saujanya and Sneha, are the children of Chandrakant. Shashikant s/o Balaji Padalwar is the grandson of Ganpat. Raghunath, Hanmant and Ramakant are the sons of Shankar. Mallikarjun and Sahebrao are the sons of Virbhadra. Maroti and Malkaji are the sons of Gangaram. Hanmant is the son of Jaywant. Gopal and Prakash are the sons of Hanmant. Hanmant, Ganpat, Anand, Suryakant and Chandrakant are the sons of Eknath. Govind, Sheshrao, Pandurang and Shivaji are the sons of Venkanna. 6.
The Petitioner in Writ Petition No.8855 of 2025 (Shrinivas), Vaishnavi and Suvarnarani, are the children of Ramakant. Balaji, Dattatray and Nirmala, are the children of Shivaji. 7.
The Petitioner in Writ Petition No.8856 of 2025 (Prashant), Prajakta (Petitioner in Writ Petition No.8857 of 2025) and Balkrushna, are the cousins.
8.
The Petitioner in Writ Petition No.8860 of 2025 (Shivnanda), Vyankat and Meena, are the children of Pandurang.
(( 4 )) 9.
The Petitioner in Writ Petition No.8857 of 2025 (Prajakta), is the daughter of Balaji (Petitioner in Writ Petition No.8858 of 2025).
10.
The Petitioner in Writ Petition No.8859 of 2025 (Manoj), is the grandson of Govind.
11.
On the face of the record, it appears that this Court as well as Respondent No.2 granted number of 'Mannervarlu' Scheduled Tribe validity certificates in favour of blood relatives of the Petitioners, as under:- Sr.
No.
Name Date Granted by 1.
Sneha Chandrakant Padalwar 04.10.2017 High Court Writ Petition No.10378 of 2017 2.
Vaishnavi Ramakant Padalwar 03.08.2018 High Court Writ Petition No.8917 of 2018 3.
Soujanya Chandrakant Padalwar 25.01.2022 High Court Writ Petition No.1258 of 2022 4.
Shashikant Balajirao Padalwar 19.08.2023 High Court Writ Petition No.1711 of 2022
(( 5 )) 5.
Ashok Hanmantrao padalwar 19.08.2023 High Court Writ Petition No.1731 of 2022 6.
Swapnil Digambarrao Padalwar 28.01.2022 High Court Writ Petition No.1144 of 2022 7.
Gangasagar Vyankatrao Padalwar 10.03.2025 High Court Writ Petition No.2946 of 2025 8.
Venkat Pandurang Padalwar 19.07.2007 Committee 9.
Deepa Venkatrao Padalwar 07.07.2011 Committee 12.
Therefore, it appears that the paternal blood relatives of all these Petitioners are holding conditional validity certificates of "Mannervarlu" Scheduled Tribe. The present Petitioners are also entitled to receive the conditional validity certificates. Therefore, taking into consideration the law laid down in the cases of Mah. Adiwasi Thakur Jamat Swarakshan Samiti Vs. State of Maharashtra & Ors.; AIR 2023 SC 1657, Shweta Balaji Isankar Vs. State of Maharashtra & Ors., 2018 SCC Online Bom. 10341, Apoorva Vinay Nichale Vs. Divisional Caste Certificate Scrutiny Committee No.1 and Ors., 2010(6) Mh.L.J. 401, wherein it has been concluded that when the biological father, biological siblings, biological uncle etc., are granted validity certificates, a candidate so related to them, cannot be
(( 6 )) deprived of a validity certificate. The present Petitioners are entitled to have a certificate of validity.
13.
In view of above, we are inclined to allow all these Petitions partly, and proceed to pass the following order:-
O R D E R
(i) The Writ Petitions are partly allowed.
(ii) The impugned common order dated 02.05.2025 passed by Respondent No.2 Scrutiny Committee, is hereby quashed and set aside.
(iii) Respondent No.2 Scrutiny Committee shall issue 'Mennervarlu' Scheduled Tribe validity certificate in favour of the Petitioners, within a period of four weeks from today, which shall be subject to the following conditions:- (a) The caste validity certificate shall be subject to the outcome of the re-verification of the validity certificates of blood relatives of the Petitioners, which the Respondent No.2 Scrutiny Committee may propose to re-open. (b) The Petitioners shall not claim any equity. (c) The Petitioners shall cooperate with the Scrutiny Committee.
[ Y. G. KHOBRAGADE, J. ] [ MANISH PITALE, J. ] SMS