Supreme Court Upholds Tribal Caste Claim, Citing Pre-Independence Document and Rejecting Affinity Test as Sole Criterion.


12-August-2025 Civil Appeals >> Civil & Consumer Law  

The Supreme Court in Yogesh Madhav Makalwad v/s The State of Maharashtra & Others has overturned a High Court judgment and an order by the Scheduled Tribe Certificate Scrutiny Committee, thereby validating the caste certificate of the appellant as belonging to the Scheduled Tribe - Koli Mahadev.

The appellant's claim, along with that of his father, was invalidated by the Scrutiny Committee and upheld by the High Court. The primary basis for the invalidation was the committee's doubt about the authenticity of a key pre-Independence document and the appellant's failure to pass the "affinity test."


 

 

The appellant's grandfather's school admission record from 1943 explicitly listed his caste as Koli Mahadev. Despite this, the Scrutiny Committee and the High Court dismissed the document, citing an inconclusive report on a potential handwriting interpolation.

The Supreme Court, after personally examining the 1943 document with a magnifying glass, concluded that the caste entry was written in the same ink and handwriting, finding no evidence of interpolation. The Court emphasized that pre-Independence documents carry a "higher degree of probative value", as established in the precedent-setting case of Anand v. Committee for Scrutiny & Verification of Tribe Claims.

Regarding the affinity test, which requires an applicant to demonstrate knowledge of their tribe's customs, rituals, and traditions, the Court referenced its earlier decisions in Anand and Maharashtra Adiwasi Thakur Jamat Swarakshan Samiti. It reiterated that with modernization, migration, and integration into mainstream society, the affinity test should not be the sole or "litmus test" for rejecting a caste claim, especially when strong documentary evidence exists.

In its conclusion, the Court found the decisions of both the Scrutiny Committee and the High Court to be legally unsustainable. It ruled that the appellant does belong to the Koli Mahadev Tribe and directed the Scrutiny Committee to issue a Caste Validity Certificate within six weeks.