In order to ensure that the benefit of reservation and other schemes of concessions, etc. meant for SCs/STs/OBCs go only to the rightful claimants, it is necessary to ascertain the caste verification status of an employee. Hon’ble Supreme Court, vide its judgement, dated 2.9.1994, in the matter of ‘Kumari Madhuri Patil vs Addl. Commissioner’, has held that the admission wrongly gained or appointment wrongly obtained on the basis of false social status certificate necessarily has the effect of depriving the genuine Scheduled Castes or Scheduled Tribes or OBC candidates, as enjoined in the Constitution, of the benefits conferred on them by the Constitution. Accordingly, in order to streamline the procedure for the issuance of social status certificates, their scrutiny and their approval, the Hon’ble Supreme Court, vide its aforesaid judgement, has laid down detailed guidelines to be followed by the State Governments.
2. DoPT has issued instructions from time to time for streamlining the process of verification of caste certificate of the employees. DoPT instructions provide that wherever it is found that a Government servant, who was not qualified or eligible in terms of the recruitment rules etc., for initial recruitment in service or had furnished false information or produced a false certificate in order to secure appointment, he should not be retained in service. If, he is probationer or a temporary Government servant, he should be discharged or his services should be terminated. If he has become a permanent Government servant, an inquiry as prescribed in Rule 14 of CCS(CCA) Rules, 1965 may be held and if the charges are proved, the Government servant should be removed or dismissed from service. In no circumstances should any other penalty be imposed.
3. The instructions further provide that where a candidate belonging to a SC, ST and OBC is unable to produce a certificate from any of the prescribed authorities, he/she may be appointed provisionally on the basis of whatever prima-facie proof he/she is able to produce in support of his/her claim subject to his/her furnishing the prescribed certificate within a reasonable time and if there is genuine difficulty in his/her obtaining a certificate, the appointing authority should itself verify his/her claim through the District Authorities concerned.
4. Communications have also been issued to the State/UT Governments from time to time requesting them to issue instructions to the District Magistrates/District Collectors/Deputy Commissioners of the districts to the effect that they should ensure at their own level that the Caste/Community certificate referred to the district authorities is verified and reported to the appointing authority within one month of receipt of request from such authority. The State/UT Governments have also been requested to initiate disciplinary proceedings against the officers who default in timely verification of Caste Status.
5. However, instances have come to notice that the appointing authority has taken an unduly long time in getting the caste status of an employee verified through the concerned State authorities and the pensionary benefits of such employees have been withheld on the ground that their caste verification is pending. Such action on the part of the concerned authorities of the Ministries/ Departments of the Government of India is totally in contravention of the existing instructions. The Parliamentary Committee on the Welfare of SC and ST has taken a serious view of it.
6. In view of the above, all the Ministries/ Departments, including their attached, subordinate offices, PSUs, Autonomous Bodies etc., are requested to ensure that process for verification of the caste certificate of the employee may be initiated immediately and a communication may be issued to the concerned State/ UT Authorities within a week of joining of government service by the employee. As already stated above, the State/UT Authorities have been requested from time to time to verify the caste/community certificate of the candidates/ employees and report the same to the appointing authority within one month of receipt of request from such appointing authority. Hence, if no report is received from the concerned State/UT Authorities within a period of one month, the matter may be taken up at the highest level and it may be ensured that the process for verification of the caste/tribe/community certificate of the employee is completed within a period of six months of her/his joining the service.
कार्मिक एवं प्रशिक्षण विभागDepartment of 
