Bombay HC cancels fake caste papers of Amravati MP

Bombay High Court on Tuesday cancelled the caste certificate of independent MP Navneet Kaur and held that she got it validated fraudulently from the caste scrutiny committee and had continued to avail all benefits. The HC held that the Amravati MP had intentionally made a false claim for the scheduled caste certificate and has imposed a fine of Rs 2 lakh. Navneet Kaur Harbhjansingh Kundles, a resident of Mumbai’s Marathwada Chawl in Narayan Nagar, had won the Amravati seat in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. Former MP and Shiv Sena leader Anandra Adsul and other candidates who had contested in the 2019 election had approached the High Court regarding the fraudulent caste certificate.

The division bench of Justice R D Dhanuka and Justice V G Bisht said that “In our view since Navneet Kaur has obtained the caste certificate fraudulently and got the said caste certificate validated fraudulently from Caste Scrutiny Committee by producing fabricated and fraudulent documents, such caste certificate is cancelled and stands confiscated.” With this, the court quashed and set aside the caste certificate validation order passed on Nov 3, 2017 by the Mumbai Suburban District Caste Scrutiny Committee that had declared that Navneet Kaur was from the ‘Mochi’ Schedule Caste. Navneet Kaur has been directed to surrender the caste certificate to the District Caste Scrutiny Committee within six weeks from June 8. The High Court in its 108-page judgement also castigated the functioning of the caste scrutiny committee.