Full Judgment Text
REPORTABLE
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF INDIA
CIVIL APPELLATE JURISDICTION
CIVIL APPEAL No.2095 OF 2007
Vilas Dinkar Bhat ….Appellant(s)
VERSUS
State of Maharashtra & Ors. …Respondent(s)
J U D G M E N T
Abhay Manohar Sapre, J.
1) This appeal is directed against the final
judgment and order dated 12.07.2004 passed by
Signature Not Verified
the High Court of Judicature at Bombay in Writ
Digitally signed by
ANITA MALHOTRA
Date: 2018.08.10
17:14:09 IST
Reason:
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Petition No.7518 of 2002 and the judgment and
order dated 11.12.2006 in Review Petition No.2982
of 2006 whereby the High Court dismissed the Writ
Petition and also the Review Petition filed by the
appellant herein.
2)
Few facts need to be mentioned to appreciate
the short issue involved in the appeal.
3) The question arises in this appeal is about the
caste of the appellantwhether the appellant belongs
to a caste, known as “Thakar” a Schedule Tribe, or
not.
4) According to the appellant, he by birth belongs
to “Thakar” caste which is a Schedule Tribe and,
therefore, he is entitled to claim a declaration to
that effect in his favour.
5) For claiming this declaration, the appellant
approached to the Committee concerned and also
the High Court of Bombay twice but his claim
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suffered dismissal before the Committee and the
High Court in the writ petition on both the
occasions giving rise to filing of this appeal by way
of special leave against the order of the High Court.
6) Submission of learned counsel for the
appellant was essentially one. His argument is that
though the appellant had filed as many as 50
documents in support of his case to prove that he
belongs to a caste “Thakar” but unfortunately
neither the Committee and nor the High Court
examined the documents in their proper perspective
in their respective jurisdiction and, therefore, the
matter needs to be reconsidered by the Committee
afresh.
7) Learned counsel especially brought to our
notice the documents at pages 30 to 33 of the SLP
paper book, which, according to learned counsel,
are in his favour but none of these documents were
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considered either by the Committee or the High
Court.
8) In reply, learned counsel for the respondent
(State) supported the impugned order of the High
Court.
9) Having heard the learned counsel for the
parties and on perusal of the record of the case, we
are inclined to allow the appeal and while setting
aside the impugned order and also the order of the
Committee, remand the case to the Committee for
fresh consideration of the appellant's case on its
merit.
10) On perusal of the Committee's order, we find
that the Committee though considered some
documents filed by the appellant but did not
consider all the documents on which the appellant
had placed reliance. The High Court in its writ
jurisdiction declined to go into the merits of the writ
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petition stating that since the issue involves
questions of fact, it is not possible to examine the
case on facts in its writ jurisdiction. It is more so
when the Committee probed the issue in detail on
facts.
11) In our opinion, when a party relies upon any
evidence, whether it is oral or documentary, in
support of his case, the
Court/Committee/Authority, as the case may be,
and especially the original Court is under an
obligation to apply its mind to the entire
documentary evidence on which the party has
placed reliance for proving his case and record its
reasoned findings whether accepting the evidence
or rejecting it. What is important is the
consideration of entire evidence adduced by the
parties in accordance with law while deciding the
case.
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12) It is for this reason, we consider it proper to
remand the case to the Committee for
reconsideration of the appellant's case on its merits
in accordance with law keeping in view our
observation made supra because we find that this
principle was not followed by the Committee while
considering the appellant's case.
13) The Committee will decide the matter after
affording an opportunity to the appellant strictly in
accordance with law without being influenced by
any of our observation on merits which we have
refrained to make once formed an opinion to
remand the case to the Committee.
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14) The appeal thus succeeds and is accordingly
allowed. Impugned order and the order of the
Committee are set aside. The case is remanded to
the Committee for its disposal afresh, as directed
above, within six months.
………...................................J.
[ABHAY MANOHAR SAPRE]
…...……..................................J.
[S. ABDUL NAZEER]
New Delhi;
August 10, 2018
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