The Nagpur bench of Bombay High Court on Tuesday (June 8) rejected the caste certificate of Independent MP from Amravati, Navneet Kaur Rana, thus endangering her Lok Sabha membership. She has also been fined Rs two lakh.
Though she won as an Independent defeating Shiv Sena’s Anandrao Adsul in 2019 Lok Sabha election she has extended support to the Bharatiya Janata Party on various issues.
In the Lok Sabha, Navneet Rana had in the last session raised the matter of suspended Maharashtra cop Sachin Vaze, now arrested for his alleged involvement in the Mukesh Ambani bomb threat case and being probed for the related death of Thane businessman Mansukh Hiran. She had also demanded that Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray step down in the wake of former Mumbai Police Commissioner Param Bir Singh’s corruption allegations. It needs to be mentioned that she had also demanded the resignation of Maharashtra chief minister Uddhav Thackeray.
The court has also ordered that the false Scheduled Caste certificate be submitted to the government within six weeks. A division bench of Justices R D Dhanuka and V G Bisht noted that the claim of belonging to ‘Mochi’ caste made by Rana for obtaining the Scheduled Caste certificate itself was fraudulent and made with an intention to obtain various benefits available to a candidate from such category, despite knowing she does not belong to that caste. Rana, a Telugu actor, is likely to challenge the high court’s decision in the Supreme Court.
Rana, originally from Punjab, married Ravi Rana, an Independent MLA of Maharashtra in 2011. As a Nationalist Congress Party candidate, she lost to Adsul in the 2014 Lok Sabha election but won in 2019 as an Independent. She reportedly got the backing of Congress and NCP as BJP and Shiv Sena were then in alliance.
