UP Dy CM Keshav Maurya's 'Fake' Degree Row Gets New Life, Allahabad High Court Ready to Hear it

New Delhi: The alleged ‘fake’ educational degree charge against Keshav Prasad Maurya, a senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and deputy chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, has got a new lease of life. 

The Allahabad high court has admitted a petition by a Prayagraj-based BJP leader and social activist who is seeking a criminal case against Maurya accusing him of furnishing fake educational degrees while contesting various elections and to secure a petrol pump.

Maurya, among the BJP’s most prominent OBC leaders, is also one of the top competitors of chief minister Yogi Adityanath for the top post in Uttar Pradesh.

The Supreme Court had in January directed the Allahabad high court to decide the petition filed by Diwakar Nath Tripathi as it set aside the high court’s 2024 order dismissing his revision petition against a lower court verdict which had rejected his plea against Maurya in 2021.

On April 24, a bench of Justice Sanjay Kumar Singh in light of the apex court’s order admitted Tripathi’s petition condoning the delay of 318 days in filing a criminal revision, which was the ground on which the high court had last year dismissed his plea. The Supreme Court had in January set aside a February 1, 2024, order of the high court which had rejected Tripathi’s revision plea due to a delay beyond a stipulated time in filing it. The Supreme Court accepted Tripathi’s explanation that he had been suffering from dengue for a long period. 

In 2021, Tripathi filed an application in the court of additional chief judicial magistrate, Prayagraj, under section 156(3) of the Criminal Procedure Code, which empowers a magistrate to order a police investigation into a cognizable offence. Tripathi requested before the magistrate that a case be lodged against Maurya and an investigation be carried out. Before approaching the court, he said, he had filed complaints to the police in Prayagraj but they did not act on his application. 

In his application against Maurya, Tripathi made three main allegations, accusing the BJP leader of using submitting forged and improper educational documents to obtain a petrol pump filling station of the Indian Oil Corporation Limited in Kaushambi, his native district, and also producing them in his affidavit while contesting elections in 2007, 2012 and 2014. Maurya contested the Assembly elections in 2007 (Allahabad West) and 2012 (Sirathu, Kaushambi) and the Lok Sabha election in 2014 (Phulpur, Allahabad). He is currently a member of the legislative council in UP or an MLC.

Tripathi alleged that in his affidavit while contesting the 2007 election, Maurya had filled the education qualification column with details that he had secured the ‘prathama’ degree from the Hindi Sahitya Sammelan Allahabad in 1986, the ‘madhyama’ degree in 1988 and the ‘uttama’ degree in 1998. In the 2012 election, Maurya listed B.A. pass, 1997, from the same institution as his highest educational qualification. Similar “false affidavits” were used in the 2014 Lok Sabha election and the MLC election, alleged Tripathi.

He stressed that the “prathama”, “madhyama”, “uttama” and “sahitya ratna” degrees issued by the Hindi Sahitya Sammelan were not considered as equivalent to the high school, intermediate and graduate/B.A. degrees by the state government, the University Grants Commission or the NCERT. Tripathi said that in an RTI response to him, the principal secretary of the secondary education board, UP, in 2017 made it clear that the “madhyama/visharad” examination of the Hindu Sahitya Sammelan was not equivalent to the high school intermediate exam of the secondary education board, neither in the present nor in the past.

Maurya allegedly used the same unrecognised documents and certificates to obtain a license for a petrol pump, said Tripathi. Under the high school qualification column in the Indian Oil Corporation booklet, Maurya attached his “prathama” degree, said Tripathi. 

“The educational merit of one class was shown in different years. Whereas the educational qualification for one class can only have one eligibility year or session. It cannot vary,” said Tripathi, according to the 2021 order of the Prayagraj additional chief judicial magistrate. 

Tripathi said that when he went to obtain a copy of Maurya’s “madhyama” part two answer sheet, the office staff at the Hindi Sahitya Sammelan after looking at the records informed him that the serial number 2053 belonged to one Manju Singh. Tripathi accused Maurya of forging the marksheet.

However, additional chief judicial magistrate Namrata Singh said that both the mark sheets submitted by Tripathi (Manju Singh and Maurya’s) were photocopies and not verified copies. The additional chief judicial magistrate took note of a police report (based on a preliminary probe) which said that Tripathi did not secure any certified evidence regarding an alleged fake document from the Hindu Sahitya Sammelan, nor did he submit any application for action to the Election Commission to probe the alleged fake documents in the affidavit.

ACJM Namrata Singh dismissed Tripathi’s claims about the petrol pump with a similar argument, saying that no documentary evidence was submitted by him about sending any application for action to the Indian Oil. If the Indian Oil had allotted petrol pumps without considering the eligibility of the applicant and if there was any act of wrongdoing due to violation of its rules, then the action would be taken by the company itself and not by any other person, she said.

“It is not a crime in itself for a person to have a degree from the Hindi Sahitya Sammelan,” she said, adding that it was a matter of investigation under the rules of the institution where the application was made whether the degree was equivalent to high school or not. 

ACJM Singh ruled that prima facie no cognisable offence was shown to have been committed by Maurya and in September 2021 dismissed Tripathi’s application as baseless and weak.

Tripathi then approached the high court with a plea to set aside the ACJM’s order. Tripathi pleaded that he could not file the revision in time due to illness. His revision was filed on April 12, 2023, while the limitation to file such a plea was up to May 29, 2022. It was a delay of 318 days.

Justice Samit Gopal did not agree with his explanation and dismissed his delay condonation application on February 1, 2024, saying that Tripathi appeared to be “casual, non-serious and non-vigilant.”

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