Judicial officer not vested with power to issue certificate:HC

A division bench, comprising justices Elipe Dharma Rao and R Subbiah, observed that no power had been vested with the judicial officer to issue a community certificate as the field was completely occupied by orders of the government, issued in pursuance of a judgement of the Supreme Court.

Since a State Level Scrutiny Committee alone was empowered to scrutinise the genuineness of the ST certificate, as per the government order, the certificate issued by the judicial officer had no legal bearing and would not bind anybody, much less the Administration, the bench said.

It also warned judicial officers not to repeat such things in future and directed the Registrar General to issue a circular to all the JOs in the state not to issue any such community certificates.

One D Yogeswaran had applied for the post of senior clerk in Group C services in Southern Railways, for which he got selected under the ST quota in 2005.

During verification of certificates, he produced a community certificate issued by the state government in a permanent card format, even as he was asked to produce it in a prescribed format.

He moved the Central Administrative Tribunal, since the Railways insisted on production of the certificate in the prescribed format alone.

After CAT allowed his petition, the Railways filed the present writ petition, even as Yogeswaran obtained a community certificate issued by a Metropolitan Magistrate in Chennai in the prescribed format in May, 2009.