Woman’s Thakur Scheduled Tribe Claim Rejected for Failing Affinity Test; Bombay High Court Relies on Pre-1950 Family Records and Orders Validity Certificate
Scrutiny Committee Relies on Affinity Test to Reject Thakur Claim; Bombay High Court Calls It Serious Jurisdictional Error
Facts
Jyoti Tulshiramji Donge challenged the Caste Scrutiny Committee’s order dated 24 December 2004, which invalidated her caste certificate dated 4 August 1988 recognising her as belonging to the Thakur Scheduled Tribe.
This was not the first round of litigation. Her caste certificate had initially been invalidated in 1997. The Bombay High Court remanded the matter in 1998. It was again invalidated in 2002, substantially on the affinity test, leading to another remand. The Committee then rejected the claim for the third time in 2004.
A Division Bench subsequently dismissed her petition along with a group of matters in 2018. The Supreme Court later set aside that decision and directed that the cases be considered individually, bringing Jyoti’s claim back before the High Court.
Crucially, Jyoti relied upon old family records showing the caste “Thakur” across several generations.
Issues
The principal question was whether a claim to Thakur Scheduled Tribe status could be rejected primarily because the claimant failed the affinity test, despite genuine pre-Constitution documents recording her ancestors’ caste as “Thakur.”
A related issue was whether old records were deficient merely because they mentioned “Thakur” rather than the expression “Thakur Scheduled Tribe.”
Petitioner’s Arguments
Jyoti relied heavily upon documentary evidence from her paternal lineage.
Her great-grandfather Tukaram Ramu was recorded as “Thakur” in a 1913 birth and death record. Her grandfather Chandrabhan Tukaram was similarly recorded as “Thakur” in a 1944 record.
Her father Tulshiram Chandrabhan Donge was recorded as “Thakur” in school records dating from 1950, while an affidavit executed by her grandfather at the time of Tulshiram’s school admission in 1949 also described his caste as “Thakur.”
The petitioner argued that these pre-Constitution records carried extremely high evidentiary value and that the Committee could not disregard them merely because she and her relatives were unable to demonstrate sufficient knowledge of traditional tribal customs and characteristics during the affinity inquiry.
She relied principally upon the Supreme Court’s judgment in Maharashtra Adiwasi Thakur Jamat Swarakshan Samiti v. State of Maharashtra.
Respondents’ Arguments
The respondents defended the Committee’s decision by pointing to Jyoti’s failure in the affinity test.
They argued that the documents relied upon by her were insufficient to establish Scheduled Tribe status and further contended that some of the information furnished by her was contradictory.
Analysis of the Law
Pre-Constitution records have the highest probative value
The High Court relied heavily upon the Supreme Court’s decision in Maharashtra Adiwasi Thakur Jamat Swarakshan Samiti.
The Supreme Court had held that authentic documents from the pre-Constitution period showing the caste of an applicant or their ancestors possess the highest probative value. This is because, before constitutional reservations came into existence, there was substantially less incentive to falsely record oneself as belonging to a Scheduled Tribe.
The High Court found this principle directly applicable because Jyoti produced records relating to her great-grandfather, grandfather and father consistently recording the family caste as “Thakur.”
Significantly, the respondents did not allege that these documents were forged, unauthentic or unrelated to Jyoti’s ancestors.
Affinity test is not a litmus test
The Committee had accepted that the documents contained “Thakur” entries but rejected the claim because Jyoti and her relatives could not adequately explain the characteristics, customs and traits associated with the Thakur Scheduled Tribe.
The High Court held that this approach was legally erroneous.
Relying upon Anand v. Committee for Scrutiny and Verification of Tribe Claims, the Bench reiterated that an affinity test is not a litmus test for determining tribal status. Genuine documentary evidence, particularly from the pre-Constitution era, cannot be discarded merely because the claimant performs poorly in an affinity inquiry.
Old records could not be expected to say “Thakur Scheduled Tribe”
The Court addressed another important aspect of Thakur validity disputes.
The Constitution (Scheduled Tribes) Order, 1950 was issued only on 6 September 1950. Therefore, there was no logical reason why a document created in 1913, 1944, 1949 or any other pre-Constitution period would specifically describe a person’s caste as “Thakur Scheduled Tribe.”
The Court observed that it would be practically impossible to expect the expression “Thakur Scheduled Tribe” in documents created before the constitutional notification itself existed.
In the absence of material showing that the claimant belonged to an upper-caste Thakur community, her claim could not be rejected merely because the old documents contained only the word “Thakur.”
Precedent Analysis
The Court principally relied on three lines of authority.
First, in Maharashtra Adiwasi Thakur Jamat Swarakshan Samiti v. State of Maharashtra, the Supreme Court held that genuine pre-Constitution documents have the highest probative value and that Thakur claims should not mechanically be referred for vigilance and affinity inquiries merely because “Thakur” may also be found among non-tribal communities.
Second, Anand v. Committee for Scrutiny and Verification of Tribe Claims, (2012) 1 SCC 113, established that the affinity test is not conclusive and cannot override strong documentary evidence.
Third, the Court referred to the Bombay High Court decisions in Abasaheb Gulabrao Thakur, Lahu Dashrath Thakur, and Ravindra Pralhadrao Khare, which recognised the inherent flaw in expecting pre-1950 documents to contain the expression “Thakur Scheduled Tribe.”
Court’s Reasoning
The High Court found a consistent documentary chain through three generations of Jyoti’s paternal family.
The great-grandfather was recorded as Thakur in 1913; the grandfather’s record carried the same caste entry; and the father’s educational records also recorded “Thakur.” The family tree connecting these individuals to Jyoti had itself been verified during the vigilance process.
Against this documentary evidence, the Committee had essentially relied upon failure of the affinity test.
The High Court characterised this as a “serious jurisdictional error” by a quasi-judicial authority, because the Committee had allowed the affinity test to override pre-Constitution documents carrying substantially greater evidentiary weight.
This was therefore not merely a case for another remand. Having examined the evidence and applicable Supreme Court law, the High Court itself declared Jyoti to belong to the Thakur Scheduled Tribe.
Conclusion
The Bombay High Court allowed the petition and quashed the Caste Scrutiny Committee’s order dated 24 December 2004.
More importantly, instead of sending the matter back for yet another scrutiny after decades of litigation, the Court declared Jyoti Donge to belong to the Thakur Scheduled Tribe and directed issuance of a Caste Validity Certificate within eight weeks.
The central principle emerging from the judgment is that authentic pre-Constitution records consistently showing “Thakur” cannot be displaced merely by failure of an affinity test, nor can such old records be rejected because they do not use the later constitutional expression “Thakur Scheduled Tribe.”
Case: Ku. Jyoti d/o Tulshiramji Donge v. Municipal Council, Jalgaon Jamod & Anr.
Court: Bombay High Court, Civil Appellate Jurisdiction
Case No.: Writ Petition No. 9741 of 2007
Coram: Justice M. S. Karnik & Justice Sandesh D. Patil
Reserved: 17 September 2026
Pronounced: 24 September 2026
Citation: 2026:BHC-AS:39140-FB
Result: Petition allowed; invalidation order quashed; petitioner declared to belong to Thakur Scheduled Tribe; Caste Validity Certificate directed within eight weeks.
