The Bombay High Court Tuesday imposed a fine of Rs 2 lakh and cancelled the caste certificate issued to Amravati Lok Sabha MP Navneet Kaur Rana, which identified her as member of the 'Mochi' caste.
Stating that Rana had used fraudulent means to receive the scheduled caste certificate the HC directed her to surrender it within six weeks.
The high court further said that while Rana didn’t belong to the Mochi caste she obtained a certificate stating so because she wanted to contest the Lok Sabha elections on a seat reserved for SC candidates. The court also accused her of indulging in such fraudulent activity to obtain various benefits available to a candidate from such category.
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A division bench of Justices R D Dhanuka and V G Bisht has ordered the MP to pay Rs 2 lakh to the Maharashtra Legal Services Authority within two weeks.
Rana was elected from Maharashtra's Amravati Lok Sabha seat in 2019. She is an Independent MP backed by the NCP.
"The application (for caste certificate) was made intentionally to make a fraudulent claim to enable the respondent no.3 (Rana) to contest the election for the post of Member of Parliament on a seat reserved for a Scheduled Caste candidate," the HC court said in its judgement.
"In our view, since respondent no.3 has obtained the caste certificate fraudulently and got it validated fraudulently from the Caste Scrutiny Committee by producing fabricated and fraudulent documents, such caste certificate is cancelled and stands confiscated," the bench said.
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It is needless to observe that all the consequences in law providing upon cancellation of such fraudulently obtained caste certificate and caste validity certificate shall follow, the HC added.
The court in its judgement also noted the "abysmal" functioning of the scrutiny committee.
The HC passed its order on a petition filed by social worker Anandrao Adsule, seeking for cancellation of the caste certificate dated August 30, 2013 issued by Mumbai Deputy Collector, identifying Rana as belonging to the 'Mochi' caste.
Adsule later filed a complaint with the Mumbai District Caste Certificate Scrutiny Committee, which ruled in favour of Rana and validated her caste certificate.
Adsule then approached the high court.
The petitioner's case was that Rana obtained the caste certificate using forged and fabricated documents.
It claimed the certificate was obtained under the influence of Navneet Rana's husband Ravi Rana, who was a member of the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly.
The high court in its judgement said the order passed by the Scrutiny Committee validating Navneet Rana's caste certificate was "totally perverse, without the application of mind and contrary to the evidence on record".
The bench noted that the original birth certificate of Navneet Rana did not mention the caste 'Mochi'.
"In our view, there are two sets of documents produced by the respondent no.3 (Navneet Rana) which were contradictory to each other before the scrutiny committee. The respondent no.3 had claimed to be 'Sikh Chamar' as well as 'Ravidasiya Mochi'," the HC said.
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The court further said the scrutiny committee has caused "injustice" to the petitioner and has put its "imprimatur on such fraudulent caste claim".
"A wrong caste validity certificate granted in favour of the party who does not belong to that caste may deprive a genuine and deserving person belonging to such reserve category of the caste of the benefits prescribed in the Constitution of India," the court said in its order.
The HC said in its view, the terms 'Chamar' and 'Mochi' are not synonymous and are different identities.
The scrutiny committee did its job "rather sloppily and shirked the obligations" imposed on it, the HC observed.
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"The scrutiny committee has totally ignored the objections raised by the complainant and also by the Vigilance Cell in respect of the documents (submitted by Navneet Rana to support her claim that she belongs to Mochi caste)," it said.
It said the scrutiny committee allowed the caste claim in favour of Navneet Rana even though she failed to "discharge her burden by producing authentic and clear evidence".
The HC noted that the core function of the scrutiny committee while verifying caste certificates is the investigation carried out by its vigilance cell.
"The scrutiny committee is not an adjudicating authority but an administrative body that verifies facts, investigates into a specific claim of caste status and ascertains whether the caste/tribe status claim is correct or not," the court said.
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(With PTI inputs)
