The Madras High Court has upheld the cancellation of a Chennai Port Trust employee's Scheduled Tribe (ST) community certificate after authorities concluded that he belonged to the Urali Gounder community and not the Urali tribe. According to reports from Mint, Justice D. Bharatha Chakravarthy held that the verification of a community certificate could not be blocked merely because the employee had retired or the certificate had been issued decades earlier. The court also refused to direct the release of his full pension, gratuity, leave salary and other terminal benefits.
Jegannathan was issued a community certificate stating that he belonged to the Hindu Urali tribe, which is recognised as a Scheduled Tribe in Tamil Nadu. He was subsequently appointed at the Chennai Port Trust against an ST-reserved vacancy and served for more than three decades before retiring on 31 January 2013. As reported by Mint, the dispute over his community status began soon after his appointment, with verification beginning in 1983 and the certificate being referred for verification in the same year. The matter went through several rounds of litigation, with a fresh inquiry ordered in 1986 and the District Collector concluding in 1990 that Jegannathan belonged to the Urali Gounder community rather than the Scheduled Tribe.
One of Jegannathan's main arguments was that his community certificate should not have been scrutinised after his retirement and that certificates issued before 1995 should not be reopened. According to Mint, the High Court rejected this argument, relying on the Madras High Court's recent Full Bench decision in R. Gurusamy v. Tamil Nadu State Level Scrutiny Committee and Others, decided on 30 July 2026. The Full Bench had considered whether community status can be verified after retirement, whether certificates issued before 1995 can be scrutinised, and whether an inquiry that began before retirement can continue after retirement, answering these questions in favour of allowing verification.
Because the court upheld the scrutiny committee's finding, it also rejected Jegannathan's request for full retirement benefits. As reported by Mint, the court said that, in light of the Full Bench ruling, he could not claim the employment-related benefits arising from the disputed appointment. The court dismissed both writ petitions and allowed Chennai Port Trust to act on the State Level Scrutiny Committee's 19 August 2021 order and take further action in accordance with law. The ruling is significant for cases involving old community certificates because it makes clear that retirement by itself does not end a pending verification process.
