Bombay HC refutes vigilance officer for invalidating 17-year-old's caste as 'Mahar'

Mumbai: Merely because there is a photograph of Jesus Christ in a house, it would not mean that a person has converted to Christianity, the Nagpur bench of Bombay High Court has said.

A division bench of Justices Prithviraj Chavan and Urmila Joshi Phalke on October 10 allowed a petition filed by a 17-year-old girl challenging a September 2022 order passed by the Amravati District Caste Certificate Scrutiny Committee invalidating her caste as 'Mahar'.

The report of the vigilance officer (of the committee) needs to be discarded at the threshold as it is clear that the petitioner's family follows the tradition of Buddhism, it said.

The decision invalidating her caste claim was taken after the committee's vigilance cell conducted an inquiry and found that the petitioner's father and grandfather had converted to Christianity and a photograph of Jesus Christ was found displayed in their home.

Since, they converted to Christianity, they are included in the category of Other Backward Classes, the committee had said.

The petitioner girl claimed the photograph of Jesus Christ was gifted to them by someone and they had just displayed it in their house.

The HC bench in its order noted there was absolutely no shred of evidence found by the vigilance cell during inquiry that either the grandfather, father or the petitioner had undergone baptism in order to buttress the committee's contention that the petitioner's family had converted to Christianity.

"No sane man will accept or believe that merely because there is a photograph of Jesus Christ in the house would ipso facto mean that a person had converted himself into Christianity," the court said.

"Baptism is a Christian sacrament by which one is received in Church and sometimes given a name, generally involving the candidate is to be anointed with or submerged in water," it said.

Merely because the vigilance cell officer, during his visit to the house of the petitioner, noticed a photograph of Lord Jesus Christ, he assumed the petitioner's family professes Christian religion, the HC said.

The report of the vigilance officer needs to be discarded at the threshold as it is clear that the petitioner's family follows the tradition of Buddhism, it said.

The petitioner relied on the 'Mahar' caste certificates issued in the past to her father, grandfather and other blood relations.

She had also submitted a pre-constitutional document, an extract of a book, in order to substantiate her claim of belonging to 'Mahar', which is a scheduled caste.

The bench said the committee had rendered the pre-constitutional document 'otiose'.

"What more proof was required to be considered by the Committee who appears to have turned a Nelson's eye to this glaring document apart from three validity certificates which have already been granted by it in favour of blood relatives of the petitioner," the HC said.

The bench quashed the scrutiny committee's order and directed it to issue a caste validity certificate to the petitioner as belonging to 'Mahar' (Scheduled Caste) within a period of two weeks.