In a temporary relief to former Maharashtra minister and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader Manikrao Kokate, the Supreme Court Monday stayed his conviction in a document tampering case linked to the illegal acquisition of a government flat and granted temporary relief from disqualification as MLA.
A bench of Chief Justice of India Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi was hearing Kokate’s plea challenging a Bombay High Court order that refused to stay the conviction.
Kokate, an MLA from the Sinnar constituency in the Nashik district, was convicted in connection with a case pertaining to the illegal acquisition of flats under the chief minister’s discretionary quota in 1995.
The sessions court sentenced him to two years’ imprisonment, after which he approached the high court. He was later stripped of his portfolio of the sports department and his resignation from the Cabinet was accepted thereafter.
“Issue notice. Meanwhile, conviction of the petitioner shall remain stayed to the extent that there shall be no reason to disqualification as a member of state Legislative Assembly. However, that will not entitle petitioner to hold office of profit,” the Supreme Court noted in its order.
The high court had suspended the two-year sentence or jail term imposed by a Nashik sessions court on Kokate. The HC temporarily halted the execution of the jail term until further orders and granted him bail on a Rs 1 lakh surety. However, it refused to stay the conviction, noting that it could not accede to submissions by Kokate that the case fell under “exceptional” category.
The Nashik police had registered a case against the Kokate brothers- Manikrao and Sunil- for allegedly fraudulently acquiring flats for the low-income group. They alleged that the brothers submitted false income affidavits, bogus ration card documents, other false and fabricated documents and applied for flats under the said scheme and falsely showed their annual income below Rs 30,000 to become eligible as members of the low-income group. The flats were in the building constructed by Nirman builders at Vise Mala, College Road, in Nashik.
Kokate claimed that the prosecution failed to show that the income eligibility limit of Rs 30,000 per annum for Economically Weaker Section (EWS) flat allotment applied on the date of allotment in 1994, and not when he applied in 1989.
Senior Advocate Mukul Rohatgi for Kokate told the Supreme Court bench that the HC had erred in refusing to stay the conviction and said that Kokate was not the holder of any post in 1989.
However, Senior Advocate Maninder Singh, for the intervener, claimed that the HC had found that he had not declared his agricultural income at the relevant time. Singh said the HC had observed he was under a “legal and moral obligation to disclose the said income ab initio and, at the very least, prior to the finalisation of the allotment”.
The Supreme Court judges orally remarked, “False declaration does not make document forgery. But there is a fundamental error in the conviction itself. We will hear you (complainant/intervenor) also before we take a final view. This is a tentative view we have taken.”
The Supreme Court will hear Kokate’s plea in due course.