'Muslim' Prefix/ Suffix Can't Be Basis To Discard Caste Certificate: Bombay High Court
Muslim is a religion and not a caste, Court said.
'Muslim' is a religion and not a caste and thus, a caste certificate cannot be invalidated merely because it mentions the word Muslim as a prefix or suffix to the caste, held the Bombay High Court while quashing the decision of a Caste Scrutiny Committee, which invalidated a Class 12 student's certificate on the ground that the documents he relied upon, including the pre-constitutional...
'Muslim' is a religion and not a caste and thus, a caste certificate cannot be invalidated merely because it mentions the word Muslim as a prefix or suffix to the caste, held the Bombay High Court while quashing the decision of a Caste Scrutiny Committee, which invalidated a Class 12 student's certificate on the ground that the documents he relied upon, including the pre-constitutional documents of his forefathers, mentioned their caste as 'Musalman Lohar", "Lohar Muslim" etc.
Sitting at the Nagpur seat, the division bench of Justice Urmila Joshi-Phalke and Justice Raj Wakode noted that the petitioner Hasnain Riyazuddin Chauhan (17) relied on certain documents which included the pre-constitutional documents of his great-grandfather, school leaving certificate of his cousin grandfather and his own grandfather, all of which mentioned their caste as "Lohar Muslim" and for great grandfather's daughter's birth entry it was mentioned as "Musalman Lohar."
"Thus, there are three pre-constitutional entries consistently shows that forefathers of the petitioner were recorded as the 'Muslim Lohar.' Though the committee found that all the documents relied upon by the petitioner shows the caste as 'Lohar' and in some of the documents word 'Muslim' is prefixed or suffixed to the caste. Therefore, the caste claim of the petitioner has been invalidated. As far as 'Muslim' is concerned, we find that 'Muslim' is a religion and not a caste. Therefore, merely because word 'Muslim' is prefixed or suffixed to the caste, the documents cannot be discarded," the bench held.
In its August 28 order, the bench noted that the petitioner's blood relatives had already received caste validity certificates, which were not challenged by the scrutiny committee.
The bench noted that the scrutiny committee also did not claim that the said relatives obtained the validity certificates by playing fraud and in fact, held that the decision of the committee to invalidate Hasnain's certificate was contrary to the Rule 16 of the Maharashtra Scheduled Castes, De-Notified Tribes (Vimukta Jatis), Nomadic Tribes, Other Backward Classes and Special Backward Category (Regulation of Issuance and Verification of) Caste Certificate Rules, 2012.
"The order passed by the District Caste Scrutiny Committee, Yavatmal dated December 3, 2025 invalidating the caste claim of the present petitioner is hereby quashed and set aside. The petitioner is declared belonging to a 'Lohar.' The District Caste Scrutiny Committee, Yavatmal shall issue the caste validity certificate declaring the petitioner belonging to 'Lohar' within two weeks. Till then, the petitioner can rely upon this judgment and shall produce it before the appropriate authority," the bench ordered.
With these observations, the bench disposed of the plea.
Appearance:
Advocate SO Ahmed appeared for the Petitioner.
Additional Public Prosecutor S Haider represented the State.
Case Title: Hasnain Riyazuddin Chauhan vs District Caste Scrutiny Committee (Writ Petition 1001 of 2026)
Citation: 2026 LiveLaw (Bom) 422