Independent MLA Bhupendrasinh Khant has filed an appeal before a division bench of the Gujarat High Court against an earlier high court order dismissing his plea against the state government invalidating his caste certificate.
The bench of Chief Justice R Subhash Reddy and Justice V M Pancholi today kept the matter for final hearing next week.
Khant had contested the 2017 state Assembly election from Morva Hadaf constituency, which is reserved for Scheduled Tribe candidates.
However, a scrutiny committee headed by the state Tribal Development Commissioner invalidated his caste certificate a few days after his election.
Khant challenged this decision in the high court which gave him relief and asked the scrutiny committee to give the MLA a chance to be heard and present relevant documents.
Following the submission of these documents, the committee once again invalidated his certificate and Khant approached the high court another time.
In his plea, Khant had claimed that since his father had abandoned the family long back, he was using his mother's caste, the latter being a member of a Scheduled Tribe.
To support his claim, Khant had also stated in his plea that he was raised at his maternal grandfather's place after his mother was abandoned by his father.
However, the government informed the court that records suggested that Khant was raised at his father's place and not at his maternal grandfather's place.
Justice Bela Trivedi, in an order on June 30, dismissed Khant's plea against the committee's decision.
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