By IANS
New Delhi : The Supreme Court Monday issued notice to former Chhattisgarh chief minister Ajit Jogi on a petition by the state government, which had gone to the apex court after the high court dismissed its findings that Jogi possessed a fake tribal certificate.
A bench of Justice B.N. Agrawal and P.P. Naolekar, while issuing notice to the senior Congress leader, also halted a part of the Chhattisgarh High Court order directing complainant Sant Kumar Netam to pay the cost of entire litigation to Jogi.
It was Netam who had originally approached the Bilaspur collector, alleging that Jogi had procured a fictitious Scheduled Tribe certificate to fight state assembly elections in February 2001 from a reserved seat.
But on an appeal by Jogi the high court set aside the Bilaspur collector's findings in December 2006, saying he had no authority to probe into individual complaints.
But, former union minister of state for law and justice Ravi Shankar Prasad, appearing for petitioner Netam, contended that the high court's order was wrong both on facts of the individual case and on various points of law.
Seeking a reversal of the high court's order, Prasad contended that the order had the potential to lead to chaos in the country with people being encouraged to procure bogus caste certificates in the knowledge that the collector had no authority to prosecute them on this count.