Mumbai: All college students who have taken admission on the basis of fake Scheduled Caste and Schedule Tribe (SC/ST) certificates are heading for trouble. The Bombay High Court (HC) on Wednesday has categorically held that not only should the admission of such students be cancelled, but those who get a degree based on such admissions will also lose their degrees.

A division bench comprising Chief Justice Swatanter Kumar and Justice D Y Chadrachud held that the cancellation of a degree, diploma or other educational qualification follows as a matter of law upon invalidation of a caste certificate.

The judgment is significant as it puts to rest the legal tangle on the fate of students, who had taken admission on false claims of belonging to a scheduled caste or scheduled tribe.

The HC, has, in the last decade, faced a number of petitions from students who sought relief from the court after taking provisional admission, especially to engineering and medical colleges, on the grounds that they belonged to the backward castes.

The court in the present case, was dealing with a petition filed by Priyanka Panwar, a 21 year old student from Kurla (east), who had appeared for the CET conducted by the state government for admission to the medical colleges in Maharashtra in 2002.

She claimed belonging to a scheduled caste - the Katik community. She was granted admission in the Gandhi medical college in Navi Mumbai, in 2002 on a reserved seat. But in 2004, her claim for SC was invalidated through a divisional caste certificate scrutiny. She challenged the decision but the HC upheld it in 2005.

A benefit secured on the basis of a false caste claim has to be invalidated. The court said it could not go contrary to the law, especially because the constitutional validity of the state act had been upheld.