HC slams police for shoddy probe into former corporator’s caste certificate

The court was hearing a petition filed by advocate Chitra Salunke, seeking transfer of the probe to the Crime Investigation Department (CID)

MUMBAI: The Bombay High Court has pulled up the police over its shoddy investigation into complaints about a former corporator from Deonar trying to re-enter politics by using a forged caste certificate. The investigating officer (IO) in the case had not undertaken any effective probe into the allegations against Ramesh Kamble, the former corporator; instead, he deliberately taken steps to protect Kamble’s interest, the court remarked.

HC slams police for shoddy probe into former corporator’s caste certificate

“This is wholly unconscionable”, a division bench of justices AS Gadkari and Kamal Khata said.

The court was hearing a petition filed by advocate Chitra Salunke, seeking transfer of the probe to the Crime Investigation Department (CID).

According to the petition filed on June 30 through senior advocate Rajiv Chavan, Kamble contested the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) elections in 2002 from ward no. 192 (Borla North-Deonar Abattoir), which was reserved for Scheduled Castes. His candidature was backed by a certificate claiming he was a ‘Hindu Mahar’, and he won by 4,721 votes. But the runner-up candidate, Rajendra Vaman Waghmare, subsequently challenged his caste certificate.

In November 2005, a scrutiny committee invalidated Kamble’s caste certificate after finding that he was a Christian by birth. He was accordingly disqualified as corporator and Waghmare was declared the winner.

Kamble challenged the decision in multiple courts, but all courts affirmed the findings of the caste scrutiny committee, and the cancellation of his caste certificate attained finality in 2016.

In 2025, Salunkhe came across posters depicting Kamble as a former corporator and public representative. She collected relevant documents, and on April 2 this year, filed a complaint with the Cembhur police station against him for alleged forgery, cheating and fabrication of public documents.

Despite the detailed complaint, Chembur police inspector Anand Sahane did not proceed with the investigation as per law, Salunkhe alleged. She claimed that Kamble had now “succeeded in obtaining a fresh caste certificate (as a Buddhist Mahar) from another authority and has sought to rely upon the same for re-entering electoral politics”.

The investigation against Kamble was being conducted in a most lackadaisical manner only to benefit him, Salunkhe said, seeking directions for transfer of the case to the CID.

On September 23, the division bench noted that the investigation had begun on April 2 but remained incomplete for nearly five months. It further recorded that a 500-page C-summary or closure report was filed only after it raised concern over the pace of the investigation, and the report appeared to merely reproduce the finding of the scrutiny committee.

“It appears to us that the concerned IO has dishonestly taken these steps only to favour the respondent (Kamble). Filing such a C-summary report is an orchestrated attempt only to frustrate the petitioner’s remedy and overreach the process before this court and nothing else”, the bench remarked.

Accordingly, the court directed the Mumbai police commissioner to examine the entire record and file a detailed affidavit dealing with each and every allegation made by Salunkhe and the concerns raised in the order. The matter will now be heard on October 21.