The Supreme Court recently reserved its verdict on Lok Sabha MP Navneet Kaur Rana’s plea challenging the Bombay High Court verdict cancelling her caste certificate. The high court in June, 2021 had said the Mochi caste certificate was obtained fraudulently using fabricated documents. The High Court had also imposed a fine of Rs 2 lakh on the Amravati MP.
It further said the records indicated that she belonged to the Sikh-Chamar caste. A bench of Justice JK Maheshwari and Justice Sanjay Karol reserved its judgement on the plea of the independent lawmaker who represents Maharashtra’s Amravati constituency that is reserved for scheduled castes.
Earlier, the Supreme Court had stayed the high court verdict cancelling Rana’s caste certificate.
Navneet Rana, backed by the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), won from Amravati in 2019 while claiming she was a member of the Mochi caste.
A division bench of the Bombay High Court had asked NCP leader Rana to surrender the certificate within six weeks and asked her to pay the penalty of Rs 2 lakh to the Maharashtra Legal Services Authority.
The court had observed that Rana’s claim of belonging to the Mochi caste for obtaining the scheduled caste certificate itself was fraudulent and made with the intention of obtaining various benefits provided to a candidate from such a category despite knowing she does not belong to that caste.
The Bombay High Court in its judgment remarked that the application for caste certificate was made intentionally to make a fraudulent claim to enable Rana to contest the election for the post of Member of Parliament on a seat reserved for a scheduled castes candidate.
The court had passed the verdict on a plea seeking cancellation of the caste certificate dated August 30, 2013 issued by the Mumbai deputy collector, identifying Navneet Rana as a member of the Mochi caste.
Notably, Shiv Sena leader Anandrao Adsul had lodged a complaint with the Mumbai District Caste Certificate Scrutiny Committee, which ruled in Rana’s favour and validated the certificate. He then approached the high court.