Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh): The Supreme Court recently restored a criminal case against former MLA Rajendra Singh, his father Amreek Singh, and others for acquiring a fraudulent caste certificate to contest Guna Legislative Assembly constituency as a reserved category candidate, claiming to be member of Sansi, a Scheduled Caste.
The criminal complaint and the order taking cognisance were restored to the file of the Chief Judicial Magistrate First Class, Guna. The trial will proceed from that stage and will be concluded within a period of one year.
As per SC order, the case involves allegations of cheating, forgery, and other related offences. A bench of Justices BV Nagarathna and KV Vishwanathan allowed the appeals filed by complainant Komal Prasad Shakya and others, setting aside the Madhya Pradesh High Court's order of June 28, 2016. The High Court had quashed the criminal complaint and the trial court's order taking cognisance for offences under Sections 415, 416, 420, 467, 468, 471 and 120B of IPC.
The matter arose from the allegation that the accused Rajendra Singh obtained a SC certificate on August 08, 2008, from the Sub-Divisional Officer, Guna, identifying him as belonging to Sansi caste. Following this, he contested and won the election from Guna (SC reserved) Assembly constituency. Subsequently, the Caste Scrutiny Committee, through its order on August 10, 2011, directed the forfeiture of the certificate after determining it was illegal.
The complaint alleged that Rajendra Singh and his father, Amreek Singh, belong to the General category. It was claimed that only for the purpose of contesting the election as a reserved candidate, they submitted documents, affidavits and a panchnama to obtain the caste certificate before the election.
The apex court, while restoring the case, observed that High Court conducted a mini trial in the matter. The High Court had opined that, due to legal illiteracy, "it was possible that being a member of Sikh community, father or grandfather of the applicant Rajendra Singh would not have thought that they could claim for various reservations etc on the basis of their caste and therefore the applicant Rajendra Singh and his family members had used the name of the community as 'Sikh' while filling up column of caste in various applications and documents."
SC however, held that these findings regarding legal illiteracy were "conjectural and patently erroneous. The finding that the accused Rajendra Singh and Amreek Singh were unaware of their caste initially was also "conjectural in nature," the bench held.
