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Mumbai: Bombay High Court recently asked the state govt to form a committee to consider allowing applicants to provide details of their mother’s social status on the ‘Aaple Sarkar’ portal for obtaining a caste certificate.
“We call upon the state govt to consider the said aspect, and since it involves a decision to be taken by the govt, it would be appropriate for the govt to constitute a proper committee to consider whether a clause in exceptional circumstances can be entered in the Aaple Sarkar portal to enable an applicant to tender the details of the mother’s social status,” said Justices Ravindra Ghuge and Ashwin Bhobe on Feb 10.
A woman, aged 30, applied for a caste certificate based on her mother’s claim of belonging from her paternal side to the Shimpi community, which falls in the Other Backward Caste (OBC) category. Her request was rejected as the portal accepts only details of the father. She urged HC to direct the state to grant her a caste certificate on the basis of her mother’s certificate. Also, to amend the portal to give candidates the choice to enter a mother’s caste/social details.
The judges said the petitioner made a “motivated attempt” to draw the benefit of reservation despite being brought up by her father, who is a Jain falling in the open category. She always lived with her father and mother. Her father, a bank officer, funded her education while her mother is a homemaker.
In all her competitive exams, she mentioned her father’s open category status, and having failed to secure a job, her mother applied for a Shimpi caste certificate, which she received in April 2022. Thereafter, the daughter applied for it in July 2022.
“Obviously, after leading a life in an upper-caste father’s house, having taken education in reputed schools and colleges, she had an advantageous start in life and now she desires to take advantage of her mother’s reservation,” they added.
To the judges’ query what was her purpose for which she desires a caste certificate, the woman’s advocate replied she would get a reservation in competitive exams. The judges said there would be age relaxation as she will turn 31 years on May 31.
Noting that several judgments have cautioned that courts dealing with such matters must be careful, they said the petition was filed for “self-serving” purposes and an “attempt made to misrepresent”. Giving “a quietus to the issue,” they dismissed the petition as “being devoid of merits.”
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