New Delhi: The Bombay High Court “overstepped” its jurisdiction by “reappreciating” the evidence already considered by a caste scrutiny committee, the Supreme Court said as it reversed the lower court’s 2017 order cancelling the ‘Mochi’ certificate given to Amravati MP Navneet Kaur Rana.
In a major relief to Rana, a bench led by Justice J.K. Maheshwari Thursday said the scrutiny committee’s order reflects “due appreciation of evidence and application of mind” and that the HC should not have disturbed the committee’s findings.
The court was hearing Rana’s appeal against the 2017 high court order, which in turn came after several complaints questioning the validity of the ‘Mochi’ caste certificate given to her. Specifically, the complaints said that the documents that Rana submitted had been forged and even questioned if Rana’s caste had been mentioned in the Presidential Order of Maharashtra, based on which such certificates are given.
Significantly, Rana’s Amravati constituency is a reserved parliamentary seat. Although currently an independent MP, she is contesting the upcoming parliamentary election from the seat as a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate.
In its ruling, the Supreme Court said the HC could not substitute its own conclusion unless a finding of the scrutiny committee was found to be “perverse”. It “inadvertently undertook an erroneous exercise of appreciating evidence”, wrote the SC, admitting Rana’s appeal.
In the apex court, Rana’s counsel, senior advocate Dhruv Mehta argued that the HC had conducted an extensive fact-finding exercise despite the scope of the jurisdiction in such cases being limited to determine whether a court or forum acted beyond remit.
Mehta said the “roving enquiry conducted by the HC was uncalled for and the scrutiny committee followed the procedure prescribed and gave its order after due application of mind”.
However, Rana’s opponents claimed that it was constitutionally impossible to grant her the caste certificate because Ravidasia Mochi or Sikh Chamar — the caste that the Amravati MP belongs to — was not mentioned in the Presidential Order of Maharashtra. The benefit of a caste certificate can be issued if only it is mentioned in the Presidential Order, they argued.
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The case
Rana’s Mochi caste certificate came under the scanner after several complaints were submitted against her to a scrutiny committee set up by the Maharashtra government under a 2000 state Act. This law, called the Maharashtra Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, De-Notified Tribes (Vimukta Jatis), Nomadic Tribes, Other Backward Classes and Special Backward Category (Regulation of Issuance and Verification of) Caste Certificate Act, 2000, authorises the committee to verify the correctness and validity of caste certificates.
The complaints against Rana sought cancellation of the certificate issued to her on 30 August, 2013, arguing that she got it based on forged documents. These proceedings continued before the scrutiny committee and then reached the Bombay HC in 2017.
In June 2017, the HC set aside the certificate but also sent the case back to the committee with instructions that the latter must hear all parties involved before taking a decision.
In November 2017, the panel accepted Rana’s claim after she submitted two documents — a bona fide certificate from Mumbai’s Guru Nanak Khalsa College of Arts, Science and Commerce issued in her grandfather’s name which mentions her caste as ‘Sikh Chamar’, and the second, an indenture document from 1932 that corroborated Rana’s claim that her forefathers had migrated to Maharashtra from Punjab.
Two petitions were filed in the Bombay HC questioning the scrutiny committee’s decision. One of these was by Shiv Sena leader and former MP Anandrao Vithoba Adsul, whom Rana would go on to beat in the 2019 parliamentary polls.
Rana too appealed against the decision, although her challenge was a limited one. She wanted the HC to set aside the panel’s findings to the extent of non-consideration of the oldest documents submitted by her.
The HC quashed the scrutiny committee’s order saying the certificate was obtained fraudulently and ordered her to surrender it. It also imposed a cost of Rs 2 lakh on her. By then, however, Rana had contested — and won — the 2019 parliamentary election on a reserved seat.
In their arguments before the SC, Rana’s opponents repeated their claim, also arguing that the documents she submitted were contradictory. According to them, while she first claimed to belong to the Dalit Ravidasia Mochi caste from Punjab, the documents submitted to the panel after it rejected the first claim showed her to be a ‘Sikh Chamar’.
‘HC can’t interfere’ — what the court said
According to the Supreme Court, in cases such as the current one, the HC cannot use its jurisdiction under Article 226 by getting into a fact-finding exercise unless warranted.
Article 226 deals with the power of high courts to issue certain writs.
A scrutiny committee is not an adjudicating authority like a court or tribunal. Rather it is an administrative body that verifies facts, investigates a specific caste claim, and ascertains whether it is correct, the SC said.
“The adjudication on the basis of the documents falls solely within the domain of (the) scrutiny committee based on the inputs received from the Vigilance Cell. The Scrutiny Committee is an expert forum armed with fact-finding authority. The High Court ought not to have interfered, especially when Scrutiny Committee had followed the due procedure under Rule 12, 17 and 18 of the 2012 Rules (of the state law) and that there was nothing perverse about a finding of fact,” SC said.
In this case, the committee considered the documents placed before it and, after due application of mind, also gave reasons for validating Rana’s caste claim, it said.
“The Scrutiny Committee heard all the parties in detail complying with the principles of natural justice. Hence, in our considered opinion, the order of Scrutiny Committee did not merit any interference by the High Court in a ‘writ of Certiorari’ under Article 226 of the Constitution of India,” SC said. It also rejected the argument that Rana’s caste is not in the presidential order, saying the ‘Mochi’ caste was clearly mentioned.
(Edited by Uttara Ramaswamy)
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