A court in Nashik district on Tuesday upheld the two-year jail sentence awarded to Maharashtra Sports Minister and NCP leader Manikrao Kokate in a cheating and forgery case dating back to 1995.
Earlier, on February 20, a magistrate's court had convicted Kokate and his brother Sunil Kokate, sentencing them to two years imprisonment for allegedly submitting forged documents to obtain flats under a government quota. The conviction was subsequently stayed by a sessions court on March 5.
However, on Tuesday, Nashik District and Sessions Court Judge PM Badar upheld the magistrate court's order, observing that the flats secured by Kokate were not in accordance with prescribed norms and that the state government was deceived in the process.
All about the case
The case was registered in 1995 on the complaint of the former minister, late T S Dighole at the Sarkarwada Police Station in Nashik. A total of four people were named as accused in the matter, including Manikrao Kokate, his brother, and two others.
As per the prosecution, Kokate and his brother were allotted two flats meant for the Low Income Group (LIG) on College Road in Yeolakar Mala area here under the Chief Minister's 10 per cent discretionary quota.
To be eligible, they made false claims of belonging to the LIG category and not owning a house in the city, it was alleged.
After Dighole approached the police, a case of cheating, forgery, and other offences under the Indian Penal Code was registered against the Kokate brothers and two others at Sarkarwada police station here.
The rival NCP (SP) demanded that Kokate should resign following the verdict.
Manikrao Kokate, 67, is the sitting MLA from Sinnar and has had a long political career, having been elected to the Maharashtra Assembly in 1999, 2004 and 2009, before losing in 2014 and making a comeback in 2024 as a candidate of Ajit Pawar-led NCP faction.
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