Caste Affidavit — supporting a caste certificate application

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The affidavit does not make you anything

Caste status is not created by a document. It is a matter of birth into a community which appears in the notified list for the State, and it is evidenced by a certificate issued by the competent revenue authority — in practice the Mamlatdar's office — after enquiry into ancestral records. The affidavit is a supporting paper in that enquiry, giving the officer the family particulars to check against the record. Nothing sworn before a notary adds a family to a list or moves it between categories.

This should be obvious, and yet a steady number of people arrive believing that a notarised affidavit is itself a caste certificate, usually because somebody with an interest in selling it told them so. It is not, and an institution that has asked for a certificate will not take it.

What the enquiry is actually looking at

The community is traced through the father's line, and the officer looks for the oldest record that names it: the father's or grandfather's school record, an old revenue or village record, a service record, a caste certificate already issued to a father or an uncle, an entry in the land record for the ancestral village. Your own school leaving certificate is the starting point but rarely the end of it. The affidavit should therefore set out the ancestral village and taluka, the names of the father and grandfather, and the documents relied on, each identified so that the officer can pull it.

Where a caste affidavit fits alongside other papers

A caste certificate application generally travels with proof of residence, which brings in the domicile affidavit, and for OBC candidates with the income and status particulars that support a non-creamy-layer certificate. These are different documents doing different jobs — community, residence, and creamy-layer status — and an application is delayed as often by missing one of the three as by anything else.

A change of surname, incidentally, has no effect on any of this. Category status comes from the certificate and the ancestral record, not from the surname you use, and dropping a caste surname neither removes you from a category nor puts you into one.

What gets these rejected

• The community written in a form that does not appear in the notified list.
• Ancestral records referred to but not identified — no school record number, no village, no year.
• The ancestral village and taluka omitted, which is the first thing the enquiry needs.
• A deponent with no personal knowledge of the earlier generations. Where the applicant is young, an elder of the family is often the better deponent.
• Community traced through the mother where the applicable rule traces it through the father.
• Inconsistency with a certificate already issued to a sibling or a cousin — these are checked.

Practical points

These affidavits are drafted in Gujarati, since the Talati and the Mamlatdar's office will read them. Stamp duty as currently prescribed under the Gujarat Stamp Act, 1958 — confirmed at the counter, e-stamped here as a Government authorised centre. The oath is administered under section 8(1)(e) of the Notaries Act, 1952 under signature and official seal, and the fee for administering it is capped at ₹35 under Rule 10(1) of the Notaries Rules, 1956.

What to bring

• Aadhaar of the applicant and of the deponent
• School leaving certificate of the applicant, and of the father if available
• Any caste certificate already issued to the father, an uncle or a sibling
• Name of the ancestral village and taluka
• Old revenue, village or land records naming the family, if you hold any
• Ration card
• The Mamlatdar office's application form or checklist

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