HC rejects Guj MLA's plea for direction to EC on caste certificate

The Gujarat High Court Monday rejected an application filed by Independent MLA Bhupendrasinh Khant seeking direction to the Election Commission to not pass any order disqualifying him as a legislator following the invalidation of his caste certificate.

In 2017, Khant had won as an Independent candidate from the Morva Hadaf assembly seat reserved for Scheduled Tribe (ST) candidates.

The Gujarat government, however, later invalidated his caste certificate saying he was not an ST but instead belonged to the OBC (Other Backward Classes) community.

Khant's petition against the order of the tribal commissioner's scrutiny committee was dismissed by a single bench of the Gujarat High Court in July last year, after which he moved an appeal in the division bench, where the matter is pending.

In the meanwhile, Khant moved a civil application in the same court after it was brought to his notice that Vikramsinh Dindor, a BJP candidate who lost to him in the 2017 Assembly election, had approached Gujarat Governor O P Kohli seeking his disqualification.

Dindor, who had lodged complaint against Khant with the tribal commissioner against his caste certificate, made the representation to the governor on the basis of the government's order invalidating Khant's caste certificate and the subsequent order of the single bench of the high court rejecting his plea against the same.

Under the Representation of the People Act, 1951, the governor had sought the opinion of the Election Commission.

Khant had claimed that his father belonged to the OBC community, but his mother was a tribal.

As his father had abandoned the family long ago, he lived in his maternal grandfather's house and identified himself as belonging to his mother's caste, and thus his ST certificate was valid, Khant's petition had said.

Khant, who failed to get a Congress ticket, had fought as an Independent after his seat was ceded by the Congress to the Bharatiya Tribal Party under a seat-sharing agreement.