By Staff Reporter, Twocircles.net
Ahmedabad: In a blow to the Gujarat government, the High court today asked the Election Commission and the Gujarat government to file its reply against the complaint filed before it alleging a fake degree of state minister and BJP leader Shankar Chaudhary.
Farsu Goklani, a local Congress leader from Radhanpur, has filed a complaint in the Gujarat High Court claiming that the MBA degree of Chaudhary, Minister of state for Health and Family welfare, Road and Transport and Urban Housing Department, was fake.
A division bench of the High Court comprising acting Chief Justice Jayant Patel and Justice N V Anjaria, observed that the state Election Commission should not have been lax in scrutinizing the affidavit filed by the minister before he contested the last assembly election.
The court also sought reply of the minister, Patan district’s Superintendent of Police and two educational institutes from where Chaudhary claimed to have obtained the HSC (Class 12) and MBA degree.
The institutes are Patan-based school Sheth K B Vakil Vividhlaxi Vidyalaya, where Chaudhary completed his class 12th in 2011, and National Institute of Management (NIM) of Vadodara, from where he allegedly took the fake MBA degree.
Goklani alleged that Chaudhary, while filing his nomination for the 2012 Assembly elections, had claimed that he held an MBA degree, though he had passed the higher secondary examinations in 2011.
Relying upon RTI documents of the Patan-based school, Goklani said if Chaudhary had completed his class 12th in 2011 from the school, how come he completed his MBA degree, a course of three years, within a year.
While observing that the Election Commission cannot become passive in such cases and issuing notices to respondents, the High Court posted the matter for further hearing on October 29.
Chaudhary is four-term MLA from Radhanpur seat. He fought the Assembly elections against the then Chief Minister Shankarsinh Vaghela in 1997 and defeated him. He has held on to the same seat ever since. He was made minister after Anandiben Patel took charge as the Chief Minister in May 2014.