INDIA. Mumbai: A Magistrate court in Mumbai has issued non-bailable warrants (NBW) against the MP from Amravati (Maharashtra), Navneet Kaur Rana, and her father, Harbhajan Singh Ram Singh Kundles, about charges of fake caste certificate. The matter is slated to come up for hearing on September 30.
The case was lodged by a social worker Jayant Wanjari at Mulund police station (North East Mumbai), doubting Rana’s credentials in 2014 and the charge sheets were filed against Rana and her father, Harbhajan Singh Ram Singh Kundles. The matter was recorded in the Metropolitan Magistrate Court No.27 at Mulund.
Subsequently, the written petitions were filed by former MP Anandra Adsul and social worker Raju Mankar in the Bombay High Court challenging her caste certificates.
Rana is accused of forging a school-leaving certificate to get a Schedule Caste (SC) certificate to contest the Lok Sabha seat reserved for the SC candidates in the 2019 elections. She was accused of claiming to belong to the “Mochi” caste, although she does not belong to the reserved category.
On June 8, 2021, the Bombay High Court cancelled her caste certificate and asked her to surrender it. She was also fined Rs 2 lakh for submitting a fake caste certificate. The high court had concluded that “the application (for a caste certificate) was made intentionally (by Rana) to make a fraudulent claim to enable her to contest the election for the post of Member of Parliament on a seat reserved for a Scheduled Caste candidate.”
However, the Supreme Court subsequently stayed the Bombay High Court’s order cancelling her caste certificate, and the matter is pending in the Supreme Court.
However, the proceedings in the Magistrate court, where the charge sheets were filed, continue. The charges against Rana pertain to Sections 420 (cheating), 468 (forgery), 471 (fraudulently or dishonestly using as genuine any document which he knows or has reason to believe to be a forged document), and 34 (common intention). Apart from Navneet, her father, Harbhajan Singh Ramsingh Kundles, is named as an accused in the case.
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