ST certificate row: HC tells NIT-T to keep one seat vacant

CHENNAI: As a Harur-based student approached the Madras High Court against the order of the Dharmapuri Collector rejecting his application for obtaining the Scheduled Tribes (ST) certificate, a division bench of Madras High Court directed the NIT-Tiruchy to keep one seat of B Tech (mechanical engineering) vacant.

The bench comprising Justice R Subramanian and Justice K Kumaresh Babu passed the direction after the government pleader sought time to verify the correctness of the ST certificates issued by the Harur Revenue Divisional Officer to the father and paternal uncle of the petitioner named V Hariprasad.

The RDO issued the ST certificates to the father and uncle of the petitioner by considering them as Kuruman. The Collector rejected the petitioner’s application on the ground that in some of the records prior to 1976 the relatives of the petitioner are shown as ‘Kurumbar’ or ‘Kurumba’ instead of ‘Kuruman’.

However, the petitioner prayed for quashing of the Dharmapuri Collector’s order rejecting the claim of the petitioner seeking a certificate to the effect that he belongs to ‘Kuruman’, a community, which is classified as a Scheduled Tribe, which is pending before the State Level Scrutiny Committee.

Recording the submissions, the judges held that they found that the petitioner has a prima facie case in his challenge to the order of the Collector because the Collector has not doubted the genuineness of these certificates issued to the father and the paternal uncle of the petitioner.

“In the meantime, there will be a direction to the National Institute of Technology, Tiruchy to keep one seat vacant in the B.Tech., Mechanical Engineering course for the Annual Year 2022-2023,” the bench held.