Maharashtra agriculture minister Manikrao Kokate, brother get 2 years’ jail for fraud to secure EWS flats | India News

NASHIK: Maharashtra agriculture minister Manikrao Kokate and his brother, Vijay, on Thursday had been convicted and sentenced to two years’ rigorous imprisonment for securing a flat every in 1995 beneath the state govt’s 10% housing quota for economically weaker sections by fudging earnings paperwork.
Apart from two years’ RI for every of the 5 offences relating to dishonest and forgery beneath the IPC (all sentences to run concurrently), further chief judicial Justice of the Peace Rupali Narwadiya imposed a Rs 10,000 high quality for every of the 5 offences; the quantity comes to Rs 50,000 every. The courtroom additionally directed Mhada and the Nashik deputy collector (city land ceiling) to take measures to cancel allotment of the flats after the appeals interval was over.
On a plea moved later, the courtroom granted bail to the NCP functionary and his brother to allow them to enchantment in opposition to their conviction earlier than a classes courtroom in Nashik. Under the Representation of the People Act, a legislator attracts disqualification if convicted for two years or extra, until the conviction is stayed.
Kokate is the second minister of Ajit Pawar’s NCP to face the warmth after Dhananjay Munde, who’s beneath assault within the homicide case of Massajog sarpanch in Beed district.
Kokate, who was in courtroom, later instructed reporters, “It’s a 30-year-old politically motivated case. Then MLA and former minister Tukaram Dighole raised the matter, and a police complaint was registered against me by a govt official. I haven’t yet read the judgment but we will certainly file an appeal.”
The courtroom stated, (*2*)