A First Information Report (FIR) has been registered against Richa Jogi, former Chhattisgarh chief minister late Ajit Jogi's daughter-in-law, after her caste certificate was cancelled.
Jogi's certificate which declared her to be belonging to a Scheduled Tribe (ST) was cancelled by the High Level Certification Scrutiny Committee of the state's Tribal Development Department in June 2021.
A case was registered in this connection in Mungeli district on Wednesday under section 10 of the Chhattisgarh Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Classes (Regulation of Social Status Certification) Act, 2013, the police official added.
L R Kurre, assistant commissioner of the Tribal Development Department, Mungeli, had submitted an application to the Mungeli police station seeking legal action against Richa Jogi, he said.
Richa is the wife of Janata Congress Chhattisgarh (J) state president and former MLA Amit Jogi whose tribal status caste certificate was cancelled by the scrutiny committee earlier.
In October 2020, a district level verification committee suspended Richa Jogi's ST certificate, which she had obtained in the July of that year.
Subsequently, the High Level Certification Scrutiny Committee rejected her claim of being a member the Gond tribe. It also asked the district collector to take appropriate action.
Mungeli Collector recently authorized Kurre to take further action.
Section 10 of the SC, ST, OBC Act provides that when a certificate is cancelled, the person obtaining the certificate shall be punished with rigorous imprisonment for "a term which shall not be less than three months but which may extend to two years" along with a fine between Rs 2,000 to 20,000.
Reacting to the development, Richa Jogi in a statement said the FIR showed that the Congress government was nervous about her party's scheduled foot-march.
"I will challenge the FIR in the court and will not bow down before the Congress government. The FIR is an attempt to stop me from attending 'Jogi Jan Adhikar Padyatra' and it shows fear of the Congress government as our party is getting huge response," she said.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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