The Madras High Court on Monday sought the response of the State government to a public interest litigation petition that sought for a direction to “include Brahmins as a community in the list of communities of the State” and consequently issue ‘community certificates’ to them too as it was being done with respect to other caste groups.
The Second Division Bench of Justices Huluvadi G. Ramesh and RMT. Teekaa Raman ordered notice to the government on the PIL petition filed by activist advocate V. Arunagiri. Last week, Chief Justice Indira Banerjee, presiding over the first Division Bench along with Justice Abdul Quddhose, had recused from hearing the case.
During the course of hearing on Monday, the Bench led by Justice Ramesh wanted to dispose of the case by issuing a direction to consider the issue positively since what had been sought for was only certificates and not reservations in government jobs and educational institutions. Later, they decided to order notice at the instance of a government counsel.
In his affidavit, the petitioner said that he was the vice-chairman of the State unit of International Human Rights Organisation and also a member of Amnesty International though neither he nor the organisations had any personal interest in filing the PIL petition. He claimed that his Brahmin friends had informed him of not being issued with community certificates.
In his opinion, refusing to issue such certificates to a particular community alone amounted to denying equal opportunity to all citizens irrespective of caste, creed and religion. Therefore, he sent an application under the Right to Information Act of 2005 to the Revenue Secretary on August 11 wanting to know the reason for not issuing such certificates to Brahmins.
The application was forwarded to Chennai Collector who, on October 9, replied: “As per a Government notification, the Brahmins are not classified as a community. Hence, the issue of community certificate to Brahmins does not arise.” Such a stand taken by the revenue officials was illegal and liable to be interfered with by the court of law, the petitioner claimed.
He also relied upon an order issued by the Government of Telangana on June 23 accepting a proposal sent by the Chief Commissioner of Land Administration for designating Tahsildars as competent authority to issue ‘caste certificates’ to Brahmin community pursuant to a request made by Telangana Brahmin Sankshema Parishad.
