HC slaps Rs one lakh fine on petitioner

The Madras High Court bench here today slapped a fine of Rs one lakh on a petitioner who challenged the order of the state-level scrutiny committee cancelling her "Konda Reddi community" certificate.
Chief Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Justice S Tamilvanan, dismissing the petition filed by R Tenmozhi, an employee of the Indian Bank, rejected her plea that the State Level Scrutiny Committee (SLSC) was not competent to cancel the certificate issued by the Tahsildars.
A senior IAS officer, Secretary of the Adidravidar and Tribal Welfare Department is the chairman of the committee. Besides, the Director of Tribal Welfare and an Anthropologist were also in the committee. They have considered the documents and the evidence adduced and have unanimously come to the conclusion that the petitioner does not belong to "Hindu-Konda Reddis" community, the bench said.

The findings of SLSC is that it is the duty of the state to ensure that the benefit reaches to the real SC and ST community persons and ineligible persons are not entitled to get false community certificate, the bench said.
"SLSC had clearly come to the conclusion that the petitioner had obtained the certificate by cheating the constitutional mandate to defeat the noble aim of the constitution in providing certain concessions to the ST community to uplift them. It had also directed the Thanjavur district Collector to ensure that a criminal case was booked against the individual for having furnished false information and obtained ST community certificate", the judges said.

The petitioner did not appear before the RDO when she called for an inquiry after the Indian Bank General Manager directed her to get a certificate of genunineness of her community certific. SLSC also gave her reasonable opportunity to her, the bench said.

The petitioner first said the district level committee was not competent authority and only SLSC had power and competency to decide on the genuineness of the certificate issued by the Tehsilhar.
Now she was challenging that SLSC also was not competent. The entries in her SSLC certificate and property documents say that she was Reddiyar and not ST community. She had committed a fraud, the bench said.

The Judges directed that the cost be paid to the Director of Adidravidar Welfare Committee.