By: Express News ServiceDecember 30, 2025 09:19 AM IST 2 min readThe Bombay High Court has suspended the two-year sentence of Vijay Kokate in the case involving illegal acquisition of a government flat through forged documents.The Bombay High Court on Monday suspended the two-year sentence awarded to Vijay Kokate, brother of former minister and NCP leader Manikrao Kokate, in connection with the document tampering for illegal acquisition of government flat. The HC earlier stayed the sentence against Vijay’s brother and former minister Manikrao Kokate and the Supreme Court had stayed his conviction.A vacation bench of Justice Ranjitsinha R Bhonsale passed an interim order, temporarily halting the execution of the jail term until further orders and granted him bail.Vijay Kokate was already on bail during the magistrate’s trial and sessions court appeal and the high court continued this arrangement. Vijay was sentenced to two years imprisonment in the same case as his brother. However, he had not sought stay on conviction before the vacation bench of the HC.Justice Bhonsale suspended Vijay Kokate’s sentence on the similar grounds of December 19 order of HC on his brother Manikrao’s plea.Suspending the two-year sentence given to Manikrao Kokate, another bench of HC had observed that while it had considered the submissions by prosecution on seriousness of the offence, the sentence was of short-duration.In-charge Chief Public Prosecutor Mankunwar Deshmukh submitted that Vijay could have approached trial court for cancellation of non-bailable warrant.Nashik police had filed a case against the Kokate brothers, Manikrao and Sunil, for allegedly fraudulently acquiring flats for the low-income group. The prosecution claimed that the brothers submitted false income affidavits, bogus ration card documents, other false and fabricated documents and applied for flats under the said scheme. It was added that the accused falsely showed their annual income below Rs 30,000 to become eligible as members of the low-income group. © The Indian Express Pvt LtdTags:Bombay High Court