The Supreme Court on Thursday restored the scheduled caste certificate of sitting Amravati MP Navneet Kaur Rana, holding that the Bombay high court overstepped while re-appreciating the findings of the scrutiny committee, in a huge last-miniute relief that cleared the decks for her to contest the Maharashtra seat reserved for dalits on a Bharatiya Janata Party ticket.
Pronouncing the order on the last day of nomination for the seat, the apex court set aside the 2021 Bombay High Court verdict on a plea seeking cancellation of her caste certificate dated August 30, 2013 issued by a Mumbai deputy collector who held she belonged to the 'Mochi' caste.
"We are of the considered opinion that High Court inadvertently undertook an erroneous exercise of appreciating evidence in exercise of its jurisdiction under Article 226 of Constitution and swayed itself into a roving inquiry which was not expected as per settled legal position," a bench comprising justices JK Maheshwari and Sanjay Karol said in the judgement.
Writing a 44-page judgement for the bench, Justice Maheshwari referred to the 2012 rules and said the adjudication of caste on the basis of the documents falls solely within the domain of the scrutiny committee which decided the issue after taking note of inputs received from the vigilance cell.
"Having perused the order passed by the Scrutiny Committee and findings recorded by it to reach its subjective satisfaction with respect to claim of appellant, at this juncture, if we look at the whole exercise carried out by high court from the perspective of settled principles of law for invocation of jurisdiction under Article 226 of Constitution, particularly in relation of writ of certiorari, it leaves us with no scope of doubt that the high court has clearly overstepped by re-appreciating the evidence in absence of any allegation of malafide or perversity," it said.
A writ of certiorari is issued by a court higher in authority to a lower court or tribunal ordering them either to transfer a case pending with them to itself or quash their order in a case.
"The high court ought not to have interfered, especially when the Scrutiny Committee had followed the due procedure under Rule 12, 17 and 18 of the 2012 Rules and that there was nothing perverse about a finding of fact," it said while restoring the caste certificate of Rana.
It asked when the Scrutiny Committee, which is principally tasked with the fact-finding exercise for validation of caste claim, had applied its mind and reached a conclusion, whether a roving enquiry by the high court was required.
"It is well settled that high courts as well as Supreme Court should refrain themselves from deeper probe into factual issues like an appellate body unless the inferences made by the concerned authority suffers from perversity on the face of it or are impermissible in the eyes of law," it said.
It said the writ of certiorari, being a writ of high prerogative, should not be invoked on mere asking and the purpose of invoking it for a superior court is not to review or reweigh the evidence to adjudicate unless warranted.
The bench did not agree with the submission that a person falling in a reserved category in one state cannot be granted benefit of reservation in another state and said this principle has "no bearing in the present case".
It said Rana did not claim ‘Mochi' caste based on her caste in some other state.
"Rather, the claim was for ‘Mochi' based on genealogical caste history of appellant's forefathers. The Scrutiny Committee has verified the claim of Appellant holding that appellant belongs to ‘Mochi' caste in accordance with Entry 11 of Presidential Order as application to Maharashtra," it said.
Shiv Sena leader Anandrao Adsul had filed a complaint with the Mumbai District Caste Certificate Scrutiny Committee, which had ruled in Rana's favour and validated the certificate. He had then approached the high court, which ordered cancellation of the certificate.
Adsul had contended that Rana obtained the certificate using forged and fabricated documents that were acquired using the influence of her husband Ravi Rana, an MLA.
Both 'Chamar' and 'Mochi' castes figure in chapter 2 of "The Constitution (Scheduled Castes) order, 1950. The 'Chamar' caste also figures among the notified scheduled castes list of Punjab.
Mochi is a sub-caste of the Chamar community that deals with leather business. The Chamars usually process the hides, while the Mochis make leather products from them.
Rana, who joined the BJP some time ago, had won the Amravati Lok Sabha seat as an independent candidate backed by Sharad Pawar's NCP in 2019. She has been nominated by the BJP to contest the Lok Sabha polls from the seat this time.
In its order of June 8, 2021, the Bombay High Court had also imposed a fine of Rs 2 lakh on the Amravati MP, saying the records indicated that she belonged to the 'Sikh-Chamar' caste. A division bench of the high court had also directed her to surrender the certificate within six weeks.
Rana, who successfully contested the Amravati (SC) parliamentary seat in 2019, had in her election affidavit said she belonged to the 'Mochi' caste.
The top court had reserved its verdict on Rana's appeal on February 28.
