PANJIM: In a major judgement, the High Court of Bombay at Goa has directed the panch of St Cruz Village Panchayat to step down from the post on charges that he faked his caste certificate to contest and later win the local body polls.
Based on the evidences produced before the court and deposition of witnesses, the Division Bench led by Chief Justice of Bombay High Court Dipankar Datta and Justice M S Sonak, ordered that the current panch does not belong to Christian Mahar community contrary to his claims.
As such, it said, “It is axiomatic that the petitioner shall not be treated to be a member of the OBC community henceforth, and he may forthwith step down from the office to which he was elected in course of the process conducted in 2017 treating him to be a member of the OBC community.”
Araujo had moved the court challenging the decision of the Scrutiny Committee for Verification of caste certificate directing the Deputy Collector to cancel the caste certificate while declaring it invalid and revoking the document. The petition also challenges the consequential order of the Deputy Collector and Sub Divisional Magistrate, Tiswadi that cancelled the caste certificate.
During the hearing, the court noted that the petitioner’s aunt and his full-blood brother did not assert that they belonged to the Christian Mahar community. In further evidence, majority of the local persons in their statement did not support Araujo’s claim of being from OBC.
Upholding the order of the Scrutiny Committee and with the petitioner failing to establish his claim, the Division Bench dismissed his petition and ordered to step down from the panch post.
