- (1.) Learned counsel for the petitioner contended that dispute relating to caste certificate in the present matter would not have been referred to appellate Forum constituted by State Government vide Government Order dated 27th January, 2011, inasmuch as, the said forum was constituted only for deciding dispute in respect to service matter and not for other matters. He further contended that said Government Order prescribes limitation of 30 days for deciding an appeal by the Forum and in the present case appeal has not been decided within thirty days. Therefore, the appellate Forum cease to have any jurisdiction in the matter.
(2.) In my view, both the submissions have no force. It is true that this Court when confronted with a large number of cases involving serious factual dispute regarding issuance of caste certificate, made an observation that against the orders passed by the competent authority for issuing caste certificate, an appellate Forum ought to have been constituted so that such factual dispute may not come to this Court consuming valuable time of this Court in such matters, which ought to have been decided by a Forum of much lower level so that precious time of this Court may be utilized in deciding constitutional matter and other substantial matters. Consequently, State Government has constituted such a Forum and Government Order dated 27th January, 2011 has been issued.
(3.) A bare reading of aforesaid Government Order clearly shows that it has been issued to consider the dispute relating to issuance of caste certificate by the District Magistrate, Deputy Collector, Tehsildar or any other competent authority. Submission that aforesaid Forum therefore was confined only for the caste certificate disputed in service matter is misconceived. Moreover, caste certificate issuing authority is not to consider as to for what purpose the same is issued and at that time only thing which is in the mind of the authority concerned is whether the person belong to that caste or not and what would be the purpose and objective and how it would be used by the person concerned is wholly irrelevant.;