Prayagraj: The Allahabad high court has held that an Election Tribunal has no jurisdiction to verify or declare a caste certificate forged, and therefore, its genuineness cannot be challenged or scrutinised in an election petition.Justice Neeraj Tiwari made the observation while dismissing an election petition filed by Radha Charan, who had challenged the election of Vinay Prakash Gond from the Ramkola (335) assembly constituency in Kushinagar district.The constituency was reserved for Scheduled Caste (SC) candidates during the 2022 Uttar Pradesh assembly elections.According to the petitioner, Vinay Prakash Gond belonged to the Other Backward Class (OBC) and had fraudulently obtained a Scheduled Caste certificate to file his nomination papers from a constituency reserved for SC candidates.Relying on the judgment in Kumari Madhuri Patil vs additional commissioner (1994), the court emphasised that specialised scrutiny committees are the exclusive expert forums vested with the fact-finding authority to determine social status claims.The court noted that the state govt has constituted a three-tier hierarchy of scrutiny committees to examine the validity of caste certificates, and that these committees have the exclusive authority to validate or invalidate such certificates.In its July 6 judgment, the court observed: “Therefore, in the light of the facts mentioned herein above as well as the judgments relied upon, it is now crystal clear that a caste certificate issued by the competent authority can neither be challenged nor scrutinised by the Election Tribunal in an election petition.”
