Former Mayor, 7 councillors of NMC booked over caste claim

Nagpur, July 11 (UNI) Police here have registered an offence against former Mayor Devrao Umredkar and seven former members of the Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) on charges of submitting false documents in support of their claim of Scheduled Tribe (ST) status.

The offence was registered yesterday after the caste scrutiny committee lodged a complaint against them, police said today.

Last week, the Nagpur Bench of the Bombay High Court had rejected a plea by Mr Umredkar challenging an order of the caste scrutiny committee holding them ineligible for reservation meant for ST on the grounds that the documents they had submitted in support of their claim were not genuine.

The members were later disqualified and lost their membership of the NMC general body.

It was for the first time in the history of the NMC that a sitting Mayor had been disqualified on such grounds.

Besides Mr Umredkar, the other disqualified members included Sanjay Pimprikar, Pushpa Pathrabe, Sharad Bhanarkar, Vilas Parate, all from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Parshuram Bokade, Bhimrao Nandanwar and Bhaskar Burde (all Shiv Sena).

Mr Umredkar was elected Mayor after the BJP-Shiv Sena alliance swept to power in the civic elections held in February.

The councillors had filed their nominations from wards reserved for ST candidates and had submitted certificates accordingly.

Candidates, getting elected from ST wards, have to obtain validity certificates from the scrutiny committee within a stipulated period of time, failing which, they face disqualification.

UNI