Alleged forged caste certificate by AAP councillor: Court directs police to register FIR

New Delhi, Aug 3 (PTI) Hearing a plea alleging AAP Councillor Bobby Kinnar used a forged schedule caste certificate, a court here on Saturday directed the Delhi Police to register an FIR as there were two "different reports" by the certificate-issuing authority.

The court, which directed the police to probe the matter and find whether any offence was committed, said that a detailed investigation was required to unearth the entire story.

Judicial Magistrate Sanya Dalal was hearing the application for the issuance of directions to the police for the registration of FIR because the councillor obtained the scheduled caste (SC) certificate using "forged and fabricated documents".

"The allegations made by the complainant are that a false caste certificate has been illegally obtained from the tehsildar, district Gautam Buddha Nagar and within five days of the same, a second caste certificate was issued from an authority at Delhi," the court said.

It noted the allegations, according to which, the second caste certificate had been issued based on false or fabricated documents.

The court said according to the reports of the tehsildar dated June 26 and July 7, 2023 which was filed with the application, the record regarding the first certificate was unavailable upon online verification by the official and the certificate's applicant (Councillor Bobby) was also not found residing at the address mentioned on the certificate.

But according to the action taken report (ATR) filed by the investigating officer (IO) dated February 28 this year, the certificate was issued from the Dadri tehsildar's office, it said.

The court said, "Now, it is pertinent to note that two reports qua the same certificate in question has been presented by the same office i.e, office of tehsildar Dadri and they are completely contradictory in nature." "Hence, this court is of the view that a detailed investigation into the matter is required to unearth the entire story behind two different reports of the same office, as well as in view of a prima facie case since the commission of a cognisable offence is made out," it added.

The court directed the station house officer (SHO) concerned to "register FIR under the appropriate section of law without being influenced by the sections mentioned in the complaint " and file a report after investigation.

"It is, however, made clear that this order is not a direction to SHO to immediately arrest the accused. The police should first investigate the matter and find out whether actually any offence has been committed or not," it said.

The court posted the matter on August 9 for filing of compliance report. PTI MNR AS AS