Around 16 years after the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe Employees Association of Nuclear Fuel Complex (NFC) in Hyderabad raised doubts over the caste status of a scientific officer hailing from Usilampatti near here, the Madras High Court Bench here has directed the State Level Scrutiny Committee (SLSC) to find out the genuineness of the community certificate produced by him.
Disposing of a writ petition filed by Ramasamy Jaycee serving as Scientific Officer-B at NFC, an industrial unit set up under the Department of Atomic Energy to supply nuclear fuel and reactor core components, a Division Bench of Justices S. Manikumar and C.T. Selvam directed Madurai Collector to pass on the required documents to the SLSC so that a decision could be taken on the issue as early as possible.
The judges pointed out that the petitioner had been appointed as Scientific Assistant in NFC, under the quota reserved for Scheduled Tribe candidates, in 1993 on the strength of a community certificate reportedly issued on June 7, 1981 certifying him to be belonging to Hindu Kammara, a Scheduled Tribe. However, the SC/ST employees association of NFC doubted his caste status and lodged a complaint on April 24, 2000.
Subsequently, the NFC management on September 7, 2002 requested the then Madurai Collector to verify the genuineness of the petitioner’s community certificate. The Collector on September 27, 2002 directed the Usilampatti Revenue Divisional Officer to enquire into the matter and submit a report. Accordingly, the RDO on November 5, 2002 requested the writ petitioner to appear for an enquiry on December 22, 2002.
Immediately, the petitioner filed a case questioning the authority of the RDO to conduct the enquiry and the High Court allowed the case in his favour on August 10, 2005. Nevertheless, the RDO proceeded with the enquiry and sent a report to the Collector on December 20, 2006 holding that the petitioner belonged to Hindu Vadakkar, which was not a Scheduled Tribe, and hence he had filed the present writ petition in 2011.
Explaining the reason for challenging a 2006 order in 2011, the petitioner said that he came to know of the RDO’s report only when his employer proposed a departmental enquiry, on the basis of that report, on July 8, 2011. Convinced with the explanation, the judges quashed the RDO’s order on the ground that only the SLSC had the right to conduct enquiries with respect to caste status of Scheduled Tribes.
Nevertheless, they gave a consequential direction to the SLSC to look into the complaint and arrive at a decision after permitting the petitioner to defend himself in the enquiry.
