Woman wins after eight years

By S A Ishaqui
Hyderabad, July 22: A woman has won an eight-year-old legal battle against Kadapa district collector over an erroneous order passed against her.
The Andhra Pradesh High Court has held that the district collector committed a grave error in invoking the provisions of Rule 9 of Andhra Pradesh (Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Backward Classes) Regulation of Issue of Community Certificates Act 1993, in relation to the petitioner.
Justice CV Nagarjuna Reddy also imposed costs of Rs 10,000 on Kadapa collector and directed that he pay it to the petitioner,Ms KL Sulochanamma, resident of Thavvaripally village in Kadapa district.
Ms Sulochanamma applied for post of extra departmental branch post master at Thavvaripally village.
Another candidate who applied for the post unsuccessfully complained to the authorities that the petitioner was not resident of the village and alleged that she obtained a false community certificate claiming that she belongs to Scheduled Caste community.
The collector than issued a show cause notice to her and Ms Sulochanamma replied to it that she had not secured any community certificate.
After perusing the records relating to the issue, the court held that "the facts reveal that it is no one's case that the petitioner obtained a false certificate and secured job on the basis of it.It is further clear that with respect to the nativity certificate, even assuming that the same is false, the petitioner not secured employment on the strength of it".
The judge set aside the orders passed by the collector to initiate action against the petitioner for allegedly obtaining fake community certificate.
Justices Reddy said "the whole approach of the collector is perverse and vitiated by total non-application of mind and betrays lack of any comprehension on his part regarding the scope of the provisions of the Act and jurisdiction available for him to initiate action".
The court declared that the order was wholly without jurisdiction. The judge said that costs were imposed on the collector "for subjecting the petitioner to vexatious litigation, which would have caused her severe mental agony, apart from unnecessary expenditure in fighting the needless litigation".
If the collector did not pay the amount , the petitioner can recover the cost through legal process.
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