Sunil B. Shukre, J.) - (1.) Rule. Rule is made returnable forthwith and heard finally with the consent of Shri S.P. Bhandarkar, learned counsel for the petitioner, Mrs. K.R. Deshpande, learned AGP for respondent Nos. 1 & 2 and Shri S.N. Bhattad, learned counsel for respondent No. 3.
(2.) Being aggrieved by the denial of validity certificate to the petitioner in respect of her claim as belonging to Tribe "Satnami - Scheduled Tribe" declared under the Constitution (Scheduled Tribes) Order, 1950, for the State of Maharashtra as well as Madhya Pradesh, by the impugned order dated 10.01.2018, this petitioner has approached this Court by filing this petition. The reason given in the impugned order primarily is that the petitioner failed to produce before the Scrutiny Committee i.e. Respondent No. 1, the documents in proof of her claim that since 1950 the petitioner and her family were residents of Maharashtra. This is against Scrutiny Committee accepting the fact that the documents filed in proof of the claim of the petitioner that her family has been resident of Rajnandgaon district since 1950, then falling in the C.P. and Bearer province are proper. But the Scrutiny Committee is of the view that as these documents do not show residence in the area forming part of State of Maharashtra since 1950, these documents could not be accepted as sufficient proof of the petitioner being resident of the State of Maharashtra.
(3.) As rightly submitted by the learned counsel for the petitioner, the reasoning so adopted by the Scrutiny Committee is warped. The State of Maharashtra came to be formed with effect from 01.05.1960 as a result of re-organization of the States on linguistic basis and the report of the States reorganization Committee had been received, sometime in the year 1956. Following acceptance of recommendations of this Committee, various States and Provinces were reconstituted with language spoken in that area as the basis and in this reconstitution, the distribution of areas of erstwhile States and Provinces amongst the reconstituted States occurred. Previously, there were in existence, so far as Nagpur Region is concerned, a province called Central Province and Berar. This province comprised, suffice it to say for the purpose of present petition, the District of Nagpur as well as District of Rajnandgaon. After reconstitution of the States and formation of the State of Maharashtra as well as State of Madhya Pradesh on the platform of language of the majority, Nagpur district became part of the newly formed State of Maharashtra while Rajnandgaon went to new State i.e. the State of Madhya Pradesh. The facts so briefly referred to herein are part of an acknowledged and undisputed history and, therefore, could be taken into account for dealing with the issue involved here.;