Gujarat High Court dismisses Bhupendrasinh Khant’s plea to join Election Commission

The Gujarat High Court’s division bench of Acting Chief Justice AS Dave and Justice Biren Vaishnav on Monday rejected the plea of sitting independent MLA from Morva Hadav constituency Bhupendrasinh Khant to add Election Commission (EC) as a party respondent in the case filed by him challenging the invalidation of his caste certificate, which could result in his disqualification.

Notably, a single-judge bench of the court had upheld the invalidation of his caste certificate by the ‘scrutiny committee’ on the gro-und that he had wrongly obtained the certificate showing him as a member of the scheduled tribe “Hindu Bh-il”, though his father belon-ged to a non-scheduled tribe. 

The single judge had also held that the committee after duly considering the evidence on record and the relevant material along with the settled legal position by the Supreme Court had rightly invalidated his caste certificate. Khant had challenged the single judge’s verdict before the division bench, which will conduct further hearing in the main matter on Wednesday.