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31. The Scrutiny Committee was also of the opinion that the wp-3770-2017.doc petitioners or their family members could not prove cultural affinity vis-a-vis. Thakar Tribe. At paragraph No. 5 of the impugned judgment, it is noted that, according to petitioners, they celebrate festival of Diwali, their community God are Khandoba and deity Bhavani of Tulzapur, traditionally their avocation is to perform marriages and to give and take wards in marriages to and from K- Thakar, Ka-Thakar, M-Thakar, Ma-Thakar and Thakar tribes. Thus, according to Scrutiny Committee, the lifestyle of petitioners' community is actually different than genuine Thakar tribe and hence they fail to prove cultural affinity test.

32. In Anand Vs. Committee for Scrutiny and Verification of Tribe Claims and Ors3., the Hon'ble Apex Court held that while applying the affinity test, a cautious approach has to be adopted. A few decades ago, when the tribes were somewhat immune to the cultural development happening around them, the affinity test could serve as a determinative factor, however, with the migration, modernisation and contact with other communities, these communities tend to develop and adopt new traits which may not 3 2012 (1) SCC wp-3770-2017.doc essentially match with the traditional characteristics of a tribe and therefore, the affinity test may not be regarded as a litmus test for establishing the link of the applicant with a scheduled tribe.

33. The Apex Court in the said judgment also observed that the petitioner could not be denied benefit on the ground that his present traits do not match his tribe's peculiar anthropological and ethnological traits, deity, rituals, customs, mode of marriage, death ceremonies etc., and thus the affinity test can only be used to corroborate the documentary evidence and should not be the sole criteria to reject the claim.

34. At the cost of repetition, we reiterate that the Committee not only overlooked the pre- constitutional school records of father of petitioner No.1 and his relatives but also the caste certificates issued in favour of the petitioners and caste validity certificates in favour of various relatives of the petitioners.

37. By an order dated 5th December, 2009, Writ Petition No. 2152 of 2007 filed by Jaywant Dilip Pawar v. State of Maharashtra and Others came to be rejected on the premise that the petitioner had failed to show that the real brother of the petitioner was wp-3770-2017.doc granted validity certificate after applying affinity test and therefore, in the opinion of this Court, the petitioner would not be entitled to rely on that certificate.