In a significant ruling, the Supreme Court overturned the Bombay High Court’s decision to invalidate the Scheduled Caste certificate of Amravati MP Navneet Kaur Rana, who won the 2019 Lok Sabha elections from a constituency reserved for Scheduled Castes.
A bench comprising Justices JK Maheshwari and Sanjay Karol stated that the Scrutiny Committee had appropriately validated Rana’s caste certificate after careful consideration of relevant documents and ensuring all parties were heard, thereby adhering to principles of natural justice. Consequently, the High Court’s intervention in the Committee’s findings was deemed unwarranted.
In their verdict, the Supreme Court allowed Rana’s appeal and reinstated the validation order issued by the Scrutiny Committee, thereby overturning the Bombay High Court’s ruling from 2021.
The case originated from the High Court’s observation that Rana fraudulently obtained a ‘Mochi’ caste certificate despite records indicating her caste as ‘Sikh-Chamar’. The High Court distinguished between ‘Chamar’ and ‘Sikh Chamar’, asserting they were not synonymous, and criticized the Scrutiny Committee for amending entry 11 of the Constitution’s Scheduled Caste Order 1950.
The High Court emphasized that the Scrutiny Committee exceeded its authority by interpreting documents contrary to constitutional entries and invalidated Rana’s election from a Scheduled Caste-reserved seat in Maharashtra for failing to meet the burden of proof under relevant laws.
Rana contested this decision, arguing that her ancestors belonged to the Sikh-Chamar caste, where ‘Sikh’ was a religious prefix rather than a caste identifier, and asserting her belonging to the ‘Chamar’ caste.
In June 2021, the Supreme Court’s vacation bench stayed the Bombay High Court’s judgment canceling Rana’s caste certificate, and now, the appeal against this judgment has been successful.
In light of these developments, Rana, who won as an independent candidate in 2019, has been nominated by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to contest from Amravati in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
