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Forgery case: Order on minister Kokate’s plea to stay conviction adjourned till Mar 5
Forgery case: Order on minister Kokate’s plea to stay conviction adjourned till Mar 5
Mumbai, A sessions court in Maharashtra’s Nashik city on Saturday adjourned till March 5 its verdict on Maharashtra Agriculture Minister Manikrao Kokate’s plea seeking stay on his conviction and sentencing in a 1995 cheating case.
Earlier, a local court had found the NCP minister and his brother guilty of submitting fake documents to obtain flats under government quota.
The adjournment on Saturday came after a woman intervener told the court that she wanted to challenge the rejection of her application in the matter and sought time till the appeal period – the time limit within which an appeal can be filed – was over.
District Judge-1 and Additional Sessions Judge N V Jiwane considered the woman’s plea and held that the provision of Section 8 of the Representation of Peoples Act applies to Kokate as he is a sitting minister.
While the woman sought to intervene in the matter under the Representation of Peoples Act, the court rejected her plea holding that she had no locus standi, the right or ability to bring a legal action to a court of law.
A similar order was also passed on the plea of another person seeking time to challenge the rejection of his intervention application.
Besides these, the court rejected multiple applications seeking to be heard in the proceedings of the appeal filed by Kokate.
The court also noted that it was to receive the “record and proceeding of the trial court ” and that a reminder concerning it had been issued.
The sessions court “will not be in a position to pass reasoned order on the stay application” till the magistrate’s record is received, the judge noted.
“Therefore, looking to the urgency in the matter and the reason quoted by the intervener, I am of the considered opinion that a short period for challenging the order rejecting the intervention application can be granted to the intervener,” he said.
The court then adjourned the matter till March 5 to pass its order on Kokate’s stay application.
On February 20, a magistrate found minister Kokate and his brother Sunil Kokate guilty of submitting fake documents to obtain flats under government quota and handed them a two-year prison term besides imposing a fine of ₹50,000 on each sibling. The court acquitted two other accused in the case.
However, the sessions court on Monday suspended the jail sentence handed to the duo in the forgery case till there was an order on their appeal . The court also granted them bail, requiring each to furnish a personal bond and a surety bond of ₹1 lakh.
The case was originally registered in 1995 based on a complaint by the former minister, the late T S Dighole.
According to the prosecution, the Kokate brothers were allotted two flats meant for the Low Income Group under the chief minister's 10 per cent discretionary quota. The flats were located on College Road in Yeolakar Mala, Nashik. The prosecution alleged that to qualify, they falsely claimed to belong to the LIG category and declared that they did not own any houses in the city.
Following Dighole's complaint, a case was registered at Sarkarwada police station under charges of cheating, forgery, and other offences under the Indian Penal Code against the Kokate brothers and two others.
This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without modifications to text.
