New Delhi: The Supreme Court today was faced with a demand by an elected sarpanch Mohan Kumar, who said before court that he would rather be known as a Julaha, or weaver, the trade that defines his Scheduled Caste certificate, than have a related caste – Arora Khatri Caste (General Category) attached. He got his SC certificate on the basis of the Julaha community that he belongs to. The sarpanch wanted to retain his status as Julaha.
Kumar got elected as Sarpanch which was reserved for the Scheduled Caste on the basis of the caste certificate. Senior Advocate Rajive Bhalla, appearing for the petitioner, submitted that the petitioner is more concerned about his status rather than the election as Sarpanch to the concerned gram panchayat.
The bench of Justices U.U. Lalit and Vineet Saran wants to go into the legal details and also to inspect the constitution of the state committee which looked into this, but the court also assured Kumar that his election would not be affected by the pendency of the matter.
Kumar’s appeal was against an order of the High Court of Punjab and Haryana which had upheld the decision of the Committee constituted by the National Commission for Scheduled Caste which held that certificate of Scheduled Caste was obtained by him only on the basis that he was a weaver (Julaha) and not on the basis of the caste to which he belongs to.
Kumar further submitted that if determination by the committee is to be the final word, the entire family and future generations of the petitioner would be deprived of the status of being ‘Julaha’.
It was further submitted that in terms of the directions issued by the Supreme Court in Kumari Madurai Patil and another vs. Additional Commissioner, Tribal Development and Others [1984 (6)SCC 241], a committee was constituted by the state. Moreover, it has been claimed that the committee that went into the status of the petitioner and the question on whether he belonged to the community of ‘Julaha’, was not properly constituted.
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The bench has issued notice confined to the questions whether the petitioner and his family come from the community of ‘Julaha’ and whether the committee which went into the question was properly constituted or not.
The bench further made it clear that pendency of this matter shall not have any impact or effect upon the election as sarpanch to the gram panchayat.
-India Legal Bureau