Piyush Kumar Singh vs State of Uttarakhand and Others

V.K. Bist, J.—By means of this writ petition, the petitioner has sought a writ in the nature of mandamus for a direction to the respondents to issue caste certificate to the petitioner forthwith.

Brief facts of the case are that petitioner belongs to Jatav caste which is shown as Scheduled Caste (S.C.). Petitioner is residing in the Pantnagar, Tehsil Kiccha since his birth. Father of the petitioner is working on the post of Mechanic in the department of Uttarakhand Seeds and Tarai Development Corporation Ltd. since 14.06.1990. After completing his Intermediate Examination, petitioner appeared in All India Engineering/Architecture Entrance Examination, 2010 and he qualified the same. Therefore, the petitioner applied for caste certificate before respondent No. 4-Tehsildar, Kiccha but caste certificate is not being issued to the petitioner.

Learned Counsel for the petitioner submitted that father of the petitioner is living in the State of Uttarakhand since 1990. He also submitted that petitioner was born in the State of Uttarakhand and from his childhood he studied in Pantnagar and it cannot be said that petitioner is not original resident of State of Uttarakhand. He submitted that caste certificate is urgently required by the petitioner as counselling of AIEEE, 2010 is going. He further submitted that petitioner applied for the caste certificate before Tehsildar, Kiccha but the Tehsildar illegally rejected the same. Learned Counsel for the petitioner relied on paragraph 7 of the judgment given by the Division Bench of this Court in writ petition No. 316 of 2008 (S/B) in which this Court has observed that for defining expression "original resident" one aspect which can be taken in constructing the interpretation is to include the period of residence of 15 years so as to connote the purpose and meaning of the expression "original resident". He argued that the action of the respondents in denying the caste certificate to the petitioner is not only illegal but also arbitrary.

Prima facie, this Court is of the view that at the time of creation of State of Uttarakhand, the petitioner was residing in State of Uttarakhand. He was born and brought up in Pantnagar, Tehsil Kiccha. Now it cannot be said that he is not original resident of State of Uttarakhand. But, since final decision has not been taken by the Tehsildar so far, no order interim or final can be passed at this stage. But, in the interest of justice, the writ petition is disposed of with a direction to respondent No. 4-Tehsildar Kiccha, District-Udham Singh Nagar to take final decision on the application of the petitioner in accordance with law within a period of three days from the date of production of certified copy of the order.

Let a certified copy of the order be given to the counsel for the parties within 24 hours on payment of usual charges.

Interim relief application No. 5949 of 2010 also stands disposed of.