The Bombay High Court has held that the State Caste Inquiry Committee has no power to self-verify past records, review past decisions and invalidate caste validity certificates already granted.

A division bench of Justice GS Kulkarni and Justice Jitendra Jain, in an order passed on November 1 and made available on Friday, said that the Caste Inquiry Committee has not been given any power under the law to review its decisions. Such inherent power would create huge uncertainty in the functioning of the committee. Government employees issued them between the period 1992 to 2005

10 petitions have been filed challenging the orders passed after taking cognizance. The court accepted these petitions. The petitioners belong to the Scheduled Tribe Koli Mahadev, Thakur and Thakar groups. The High Court has said in the order that the caste certificate given to someone can be questioned only if the High Court is prima facie satisfied about it.

The Caste Inquiry Committee cannot be given a free hand license to reopen cases which have been closed by its earlier orders or to re-investigate any complaint, or to review its orders. If the committee has inherent powers to review its orders, it could have disastrous consequences.

The bench set aside the orders passed by the committee last year invalidating the caste certificates given to the 10 petitioners.