Vague rules cost student a year

Updated on: Saturday, May 14, 2011

Nineteen-year-old Nigel Wilhelmina (name changed on request) secured admission in an engineering college last year. However, the college cancelled his admission just before his exam in May this year as he could not produce a caste certificate in time.

Nigel, an East Indian Christian, is one of many who lost out on an opportunity due to lack of clarity in the state government’s policy on awarding of the ‘other backward class’ (OBC) status to members of the community. In the absence of proper guidelines and official agreement on the list of documents to prove caste, many have been left scrambling for records.

In 2006, the state government notified the East Indian Christian community as OBC, thus making its members eligible for reservation in colleges and for jobs. While some had welcomed the move, others were horrified by the linking of their religion, Catholicism, to the caste system.

To avail of reservation benefits, community members have to procure a certificate from the Bombay East Indian Association. Also, their baptism certificates must state “East Indian” in the “Remarks” column (this requires the community members to apply to their churches).

While Nigel had submitted the certificates, the tehsildar’s office wrote to the social welfare officer of the Maharashtra government for guidelines. “No reference of his caste has been recorded on paper, particularly on his school leaving certificate,” the tehsildar said in his letter. “The government resolution does not prescribe certificates from the association or the parish as acceptable.” The tehsildar requested the social welfare officer to “provide guidelines and documents required for issuing of the East Indian Christian Caste certificate”.

Advocate Mihir Desai said, “There is a lot of confusion. Many East Indians had not preserved documents that could establish their caste.”

Advocate Sunil Dighe, who represented Nigel in the high court, said, “Most East Indians mentioned Roman Catholics as their religion in their school leaving certificates. The caste column was left blank.”

Vague rules cost student a year

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