Child raised by mother entitled to take her caste: Bombay High Court

A child raised by his/ her mother is entitled to stake claim as belonging to the mother's caste, the Bombay High Court recently held [Kasturi Sushma Khandekar v. State of Maharashtra].

A Bench of Justices GA Sanap and SB Shukre, based on the Vigilance Enquiry Officer's enquiry, found that the petitioner, after her parents' divorce, had been raised by her mother with her caste's customs and traditions.

Therefore, it opined that the petitioner was entitled to stake a claim as belonging to her mother's caste as per the law laid down in Rameshbhai Dabhai Naika vs State of Gujarat & Ors. and the caste scrutiny committee erred in asking the petitioner to submit evidence from her paternal side.

"While invalidating the caste certificate of the Petitioner, the Scrutiny Committee erroneously held that the Petitioner ought to have submitted evidence from the side of her father in order to prove her claim. In the face of evidence overwhelmingly favouring the case of the Petitioner showing that she is entitled to claim the social status of her mother, the Scrutiny Committee took quite a contrary view ignoring the law declared by the Supreme Court in the case of Rameshbhai Naika (supra)," the bench observed.

It, therefore, directed the committee to reconsider the woman's claim to her mother's social status after holding that the committee had erred in examining the evidence.

The petitioner’s parents who got married in 1993 had obtained a consent decree of divorce in 2009. The petitioner, born in August 2002, was hardly seven years of age at that time and was, thereafter, raised by her mother as a single parent.

Even before the divorce, the record showed that the petitioner was looked after and taken care of in all respect by her mother.

The Court remarked that the scrutiny committee failed to properly appreciate the evidence brought on record by the petitioner in the nature of entries of relatives from her maternal side.

"Such peculiar background of the Petitioner discussed earlier would show that the Petitioner was also subject to same disadvantages, same neglect and same backwardness as her mother faced and therefore, the Petitioner can rightfully take the caste of her mother and not her father. In these circumstances, the Scrutiny Committee ought to have appreciated the evidence produced on record by the Petitioner which pertains to the relatives of the mother of the Petitioner but that has not been done by the Scrutiny Committee," it said.

Therefore, the Court held the committee's order to be unsustainable. The order was quashed and set aside with instructions to the committee to decide the caste claim of the petitioner afresh and in accordance with law.

[Read Judgment]