The top court had earlier stayed the high court’s decision to cancel his caste certificate.
New Delhi:
The Supreme Court on Wednesday reserved its verdict on Lok Sabha MP Navneet Kaur Rana’s plea challenging the Bombay High Court’s decision to cancel her caste certificate.
On June 8, 2021, the High Court had said that the ‘Mochi’ caste certificate was obtained fraudulently using fake documents. It had also imposed a fine of Rs 2 lakh on the Amravati MP. It said records showed that she belonged to the ‘Sikh-Chamar’ caste.
A bench of Justices JK Maheshwari and Sanjay Karol reserved its verdict on the plea by the independent MLA, who represents Maharashtra’s Amravati constituency which is reserved for the Scheduled Castes.
The top court had earlier stayed the high court’s decision to cancel Rana’s caste certificate.
Rana, supported by the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), won from Amravati in 2019 and claimed that she was a member of the ‘Mochi’ caste.
A division bench of the high court had asked Rana to surrender the certificate within six weeks and asked him to pay a fine of Rs 2 lakh to the Maharashtra Legal Services Authority.
The High Court had held that Rana’s claim of belonging to the ‘Mochi’ caste for obtaining a Scheduled Caste certificate was fraudulent and that a candidate belonging to such a category was entitled to various benefits despite knowing that he did not belong to that category. Was intended to. Caste.
The High Court said, “The application (for caste certificate) was made deliberately to make a fraudulent claim so as to enable respondent no. 3 (Rana) to contest the election for the post of Member of Parliament on a seat reserved for a Scheduled Caste candidate.” Can be made capable.” The court had said in its decision.
The high court had passed the order on a plea seeking cancellation of the caste certificate issued by the Mumbai Deputy Collector on August 30, 2013, which identified Rana as a member of the ‘Mochi’ caste.
Shiv Sena leader Anandrao Adsul had filed a complaint with the Mumbai District Caste Certificate Scrutiny Committee, which ruled in Rana’s favor and validated the certificate. After this he approached the High Court.
He had argued that Rana had obtained the certificate by using forged and fabricated documents. He alleged that this was achieved by using the influence of Navneet Rana’s husband Ravi Rana, who was a member of the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly.
The High Court had held that the order passed by the Inquiry Committee was completely perverse, without application of mind and contrary to the evidence on record.
The bench had said that the caste ‘Mochi’ is not mentioned in the original birth certificate of Navneet Rana.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
