The referral was made by a Division Bench of Justices Manish Pitale and Y.G. Khobragade on the Aurangabad Bench of the Bombay High Court on August 4, 2025. The courtroom was listening to petitions filed by Santosh Anil Kolhe, Sham Anil Kolhe, Sharad Arunrao Kolhe, and Balaji Arunrao Kolhe, all residents of Jamb village in Nanded district, who challenged the cancellation of their caste validity certificates by the Kinwat-based Scheduled Tribe Certificate Scrutiny Committee, headquartered at Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar.
The committee revoked their certificates on May 15, 2025, citing fraud and suppression of related details.
The petitioners, represented by Advocate Pratap V. Jadhavar, argued that scrutiny committees do not need the statutory authority to overview or recall their choices. They relied on judgments equivalent to Rakesh Bhimashankar Umbarje v. State of Maharashtra and Bharat Nagu Garud v. State of Maharashtra, the place the High Court had held that when a validity certificates is issued, the committee turns into functus officio and that solely the High Court beneath Article 226 can intervene.
Additional Government pleaders S.P. Sonpawale and Saie S. Joshi argued that scrutiny committees should retain the facility to recall certificates obtained by fraud, even when such energy isn’t expressly supplied within the 2000 Act. They cited judgments together with Rajeshwar Baburao Bone, the place the High Court and Supreme Court upheld a committee’s resolution to cancel a fraudulently obtained certificates. The State maintained that fraud vitiates each authorized act and can’t be protected by procedural limitations.
After listening to the argument, the Bench famous that totally different Benches of the High Court have taken conflicting views on the problem and noticed that whereas extreme use of recall powers may destabilize settled rights, stopping scrutiny committees from correcting fraudulent outcomes would undermine the integrity of the validation course of.
It famous that scrutiny committees have quasi-judicial powers and are higher positioned than writ courts to evaluate factual fraud in caste claims.
“But, that in itself can’t be the idea to carry that in no circumstances can the Scrutiny Committee train its inherent energy of recalling its earlier order, which has been obtained on the idea of fraud, misrepresentation or suppression of fabric details. It can’t be countenanced that orders upholding tribe claims and grant of validity certificates obtained on falsehoods, fabrications, fraud, misrepresentation or suppression of fabric details, when observed subsequently, can not turn into the idea of reopening such circumstances,” the courtroom order mentioned.
It can also be related to notice that the Scrutiny Committee is best outfitted to look at the facets of fraud, fabrication and misrepresentation because it has some powers akin to these of a civil courtroom, as in comparison with this Court exercising writ jurisdiction beneath Article 226 of the Constitution of India, it added.
The purity of the method, as soon as discovered to be polluted must be handled and subsequently, we discover that essential questions come up for consideration that must be authoritatively settled by a bigger Bench of this Court, the Bench noticed.
“Hence, we take recourse to Rule 9(A) of the Bombay High Court Appellate Side Rules, 1960, to formulate inquiries to be answered by a bigger bench within the mild of obvious battle within the aforementioned views of assorted division benches of this Court.”
The courtroom has requested 5 questions:
(i) Whether the Scrutiny Committee constituted beneath the Act of 2000, has the facility to recall its order on the bottom that it’s vitiated by fraud, misrepresentation or suppression of fabric details ?
(ii) Being a creature of the statute i.e. the Act of 2000, the Scrutiny Committee doesn’t have energy of substantive overview as a result of absence of any such provision beneath the mentioned statute, however does it denude the Scrutiny Committee of its inherent energy to recall its personal order on the bottom of fraud, misrepresentation or suppression of fabric details ?
(iii) If the Scrutiny Committee does have such restricted energy of recalling its order on the aforesaid grounds, what are the contours of the identical and what safeguards should be utilized so {that a} state of affairs of rampant recalling of orders is averted?
(iv) Whether such a safeguard can embrace necessity of searching for go away of the High Court, within the mild of the stipulation in Section 7(2) of the Act of 2000?
(v) Whether the judgments of Division Benches of this Court within the circumstances of Rakesh Bhimashankar Umbarje Vs. State of Maharashtra (supra) and Bharat Nagu Garud Vs. State of Maharashtra (supra), must be revisited to the restricted extent indicated above?
The matter has now been positioned earlier than the Chief Justice of the Bombay High Court for constituting an applicable bigger bench to resolve the problem.
