HC dismisses Shiv Sena councillor’s plea over invalid caste certificate

MUMBAI: The Bombay High Court on Monday dismissed a petition filed by Shiv Sena councillor Rupali Shigwan, who was disqualified from the Khopoli Municipal Council after her caste certificate was declared invalid

MUMBAI: The Bombay High Court on Monday dismissed a petition filed by Shiv Sena councillor Rupali Shigwan, who was disqualified from the Khopoli Municipal Council after her caste certificate was declared invalid.

A division bench of Justices R I Chagla and Firdosh Pooniwalla refused to grant any relief to Shigwan, who had challenged the August 10 order of the District Caste Certificate Scrutiny Committee (DCCSC), Raigad.

The court observed that Shigwan had “not come with clean hands to this court by relying upon a fabricated document”. It also noted that she had been found to have tampered with the genealogy tree by showing a stranger, Suryakant Tukaram Shigwan, as her paternal uncle.

The bench held that Shigwan was “not deserving of any indulgence of this court”. Shigwan, who was elected to the municipal council in 2025, was disqualified after the DCCSC held her ‘Kunbi’ caste certificate to be invalid. The court said, “in the present case the petitioner cannot claim continuation of her right to be councillor in view of the Scrutiny Committee invalidating her Caste Certificate”.

Shigwan had told the court that she was issued a caste certificate by the competent authority on July 8, 2016, certifying that she belonged to the “Kunbi, OBC” category.

She said that after being elected as a councillor in December 2025, her caste certificate was examined by the scrutiny committee. Her lawyers argued that the matter was twice closed for orders and twice reopened without any reasons being assigned for the reopening.

They also argued that within a few months, officers who had initially accepted the caste documents had subsequently held them to be untrue.