The Supreme Court bench, comprising Justices JK Maheshwari and Sanjay Karol, ruled in favor of Ms. Rana.

New Delhi:

The Supreme Court today overturned the Bombay High Court’s decision to cancel Amravati MP and Bharatiya Janata Party leader Navneet Kaur Rana’s caste certificate. The verdict comes as a relief to Ms Rana, the BJP’s candidate from the Amravati Lok Sabha seat and expected to file her nomination today.

The Supreme Court bench, comprising Justices JK Maheshwari and Sanjay Karol, ruled in favor of Ms Rana, saying the high court had wrongly interfered with the review committee’s report on her caste certificate. The High Court had previously revoked Ms Rana’s ‘mochi’ caste certificate on June 8, 2021, accusing her of using forged documents to make fraudulent purchases. Additionally, the high court also imposed a fine of Rs 2 lakh on Rana, claiming that records showed that she belonged to the “Sikh” caste. Chamar caste.

Ms Rana, who won the reserved Amravati Assembly seat in Maharashtra as an independent candidate in 2019, recently joined the BJP and is set to contest from the same constituency. Ms Rana expressed her optimism before filing her nomination papers and said the electoral opportunity would be a landmark moment for her and the voters of Amravati.

“I have been working for the people of my district for many years. This is an important day for me and my constituency. This is the first time the voters of Amravati have the opportunity to vote for nation building, development and benefits of the country,” news agency ANI quoted her as saying.

“The people of my constituency are more happy than me. They are happy that the lotus symbol appears on the ballot box for the first time. The people will directly support and vote for Prime Minister Narendra Modi,” she added.

Ms. Rana entered politics after marrying Bharatiya Janata Party leader Ravi Rana. She initially aligned with the NCP and contested the first elections from Amravati in 2014 but faced defeat.

The 48 assembly constituencies in Maharashtra will go to polls in five phases: April 19, April 26, May 7, May 13 and May 20.

In the 2019 elections, the BJP won 23 out of the 25 seats it contested, while the unified Shiv Sena won 18 out of the 23 seats it contested. In the 2014 elections, the BJP won 23 seats and the Shiv Sena 18 seats. The NCP won 4 seats while the Congress won only 2 seats.