Supreme Court grants relief to Navneet Rana, sets aside cancellation of her caste certificate

The Supreme Court on Thursday set aside the Bombay High Court decision to quash the caste certificate of Navneet Kaur Rana, the incumbent Member of Parliament (MP) from Amravati Lok Sabha constituency in Maharashtra [Navneet Kaur Ravi Rana vs State of Maharashtra and ors]..A bench of Justice JK Maheshwari and Justice Sanjay Karol thus restored the caste certificate of Rana. "In the instant case, the Scrutiny Committee duly considered the documents before it and passed its decision complying with principles of natural justice. It did not merit any interference under Article 226. In light of the discussion and the peculiar facts and circumstances of the case, the instant appeals stand allowed and the High Court order is set aside," the Court held. .The top court passed the verdict on Rana's appeal against a Bombay High Court ruling that had cancelled and confiscated the caste certificate which validated her claim that she belonged to ‘Mochi’ Schedule Caste.The apex court opined that the the High Court had wrongly re-appreciated evidence."The High Court has clearly overstepped by reappreciating the evidence in absence of any allegation of malafide or perversity. As fairly settled by this Court in catena of judgments, the writ of certiorari being a writ of high prerogative, should not be invoked on mere asking," the Supreme Court judgment said. .The development came just hours before Rana is expected to file her nomination papers as a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate from the Amaravati constituency for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.Amaravati is a reserved category constituency for the Scheduled Caste (SC) community members..Rana only recently formally joined the BJP and was declared as its candidate for the 2024 General Election.Earlier, she was elected to the Lok Sabha in 2019 as an independent candidate with the support of the Indian National Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP)..Rana's caste certificate had come under question before the High Court in a petition filed by Shiv Sena leader and former MP Anandrao Vithoba Adsul, who had challenged the certificate validating her caste as "Mochi".The caste certificate had been issued by the Mumbai Deputy Collector, and validated by the Mumbai Suburban District Caste Certificate Scrutiny Committee..A bench of Justices RD Dhanuka and VG Bisht of the High Court had held that Rana obtained the caste certificate by fabricating records to enable her to contest the parliamentary elections as a reserved category candidate and imposed a cost of ₹2 lakh on her. The judges in the June 2021 ruling had found that majority of the documents relied upon by the Amaravati MP in support of her caste claim were inadmissible. Pertinently, the Court had admonished the Scrutiny Committee for their "abysmal functioning" and for not dealing with the objections raised by the vigilance cell that the original documents were not produced, and the handwriting in the entries were different.The High Court had held that the terms ‘Chamar’ and ‘Ravidasia Mochi’ are not synonymous..Senior Advocate Dhruv Mehta represented Navneet Kaur Ravi Rana before the Supreme Court.Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal and Advocate Shadan Farasat represented the original petitioner (respondent before the Supreme Court).Advocates Siddharth Dharmadhikari and Aaditya Aniruddha Pande appeared for the State of Maharashtra.Solicitor General Tushar Mehta represented the Caste Scrutiny Committee..[Read Judgment]