Suspicious To Not Fill Family Income In Caste Certificate Form: MP High Court Declines To Quash FIR For Alleged Fraud In Obtaining OBC Certificate

The Madhya Pradesh High Court has recently declined to quash criminal proceedings against the petitioners who had been accused of allegedly attempting to obtain an OBC certificate through fraudulent means.

The petitioners while filling up the form of their caste certificate, had allegedly not reflected the income of their father & had fraudulently filled up their own income to demonstrate that they belonged to the non-creamy layer OBC category and succeeded in getting an OBC certificate from the office of the Sub Divisional Officer ("SDO").

When the SDO was alerted of the fact that the petitioners' father was serving as Principal of the Government PG College in the district, he cancelled the caste certificate issued to the petitioners and launched criminal investigation against them.

After the investigating team filed the charge sheet, the petitioners/accused preferred an application under Section 227 CrPC (Discharge since there is no sufficient ground to proceed against the accused) which was dismissed by the trial court. This order was challenged in the current miscellaneous petition.

In dismissing the plea, a single-judge bench of Justice Anil Verma held that the petitioners had left blank all the relevant fields for marking their family income in the Proforma for caste certificate which indicated that their actions were not prima facie bona fide. It held:

“…It is noteworthy that both the petitioners are highly educated persons, therefore, it cannot be presumed that they have filled the concerned form without knowing the truthfulness of this fact. There is a specific column in para 6….( Appendix-1) regarding the total annual income of all the family members, but both the petitioners have filled the said para and left it blank”, the court sitting at Indore pointed out while also referring to Proforma (6.3-C) for the caste certificate of OBC which provides for marking the income of the family from all sources.

“The burden lies upon the petitioners to prove that they have filled all the required details in the said application according to the Rules, it is a matter of evidence and the same cannot be considered at this stage without recording the evidence”, the court noted before referring to Ramveer Upadhyay and Anr. v. State of U.P. & Anr. 2022 LiveLaw (SC) 396 and CBI v. Arvind Khanna (2019). Based on the above case laws, the court inferred that sufficient prima facie evidence was available against the petitioners.

The petitioners contended that they had been issued caste certificates earlier as well by the SDO which had never been used by them.

The court found these submissions to be immaterial as far as determining the charges in the current case is concerned. The petitioners had been charged with offences under Sections 420, 465 and 468 of the IPC, 1860.

The State's case was that the petitioners deliberately omitted to fill up information about the income of their father and instead included their own income in the application for obtaining a caste certificate unlawfully. According to the prosecution, the income of the petitioners’ father, who was the principal of Government PG College, Sendhwa, was deliberately concealed in the application form and the petitioners did so in order to show that they belonged to the non-creamy layer OBC Category. 

Accordingly, the Court found no merit in the plea and it was dismissed. 

Case Title: Utkarsh Verma & Anr. v. State of Madhya Pradesh & Anr.

Case No: Misc. Criminal Case No. 36923 of 2022

Citation: 2023 LiveLaw (MP)

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