Mumbai: A court in Nashik Thursday sentenced Maharashtra Agriculture Minister Manikrao Kokate and his brother Sunil Kokate to two years’ imprisonment and a fine of Rs 50,000 each in a 1995 cheating case. They were convicted of furnishing fake documents and showing lower income to secure assets under the “chief minister’s 10 percent quota”.
“This is a very old matter. There is a process in this country. I’m going to higher courts for justice. I have the right to demand justice,” the minister told the media outside the Nashik district court after the pronouncement of the verdict, which has cast a cloud over his membership of the state assembly as well as ministership in the Mahayuti government. The Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader has 30 days to appeal the verdict.
But the Opposition has already raised the demand for Kokate’s resignation.
“Under our laws, if a public representative is convicted for two or more years, he or she loses the MLA or MP status. Kokate should immediately resign. But the question in this case is who will take his resignation? The way the government is functioning, it looks unlikely that he will be asked to resign,” Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) deputy leader Sushma Andhare said in a press statement released Thursday.
In December 2023, days after he was convicted and sentenced to five years of rigorous imprisonment in the Nagpur District Central Cooperative Bank (NDCCB) scam, Maharashtra legislature secretariat wasted no time in disqualifying Nagpur Congress MLA Sunil Kedar.
In March 2023, a day after a court sentenced him to two years in prison in a defamation case, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi was disqualified from membership of the Lok Sabha. The order was later stayed by the Supreme Court, which led to Gandhi getting his membership of the Lower House back.
In Kokate’s case, the charges against him date back to 1995 when he obtained two flats in Nirman View Apartment in Nashik under the chief minister’s quota. The rules dictate that, to obtain flats under government quota at a reduced rate, one has to submit an affidavit and related documents to prove that the person does not own property elsewhere.
But the Kokate brothers produced fake documents downplaying their income. Moreover, they helped other beneficiaries obtain two more flats in the same apartment complex, which were later used by the Kokate brothers.
Former Maharashtra minister Tukaram Dighole, who died in November 2019, had filed a petition against the Kokate brothers and two others in this regard at Nashik’s Sarkarwada police station under sections 420, 465, 471, and 47 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
Speaking to the media Thursday, Kokate said, “This case was filed 30 years ago. At that time, Dighole was my arch nemesis. That’s why he filed a case against me.”
(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)
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