Govt officers among 30 found using falsified caste certificates in Patiala
Social activist Balbir Singh, who is the complainant of this fake SC certificate racket, said the government should immediately remove these officers
In the past three years, over 30 people — including an IAS (allied), IRS and sarpanches — have been caught using falsified Schedule Caste (SC) certificates in Patiala. As per the documents accessed by Hindustan Times, the state department of social justice & minorities after holding inquiries, have declared that these officers used fake SC certificates.
Elaborating on one such case, the state-level scrutiny committee in its report, said that an IRS officer, in fact, belonged to Rajput-Rathore caste which was not in the list of Scheduled Castes. The candidate, however, got his certificate from Sirkiband caste and therefore was not legally valid.
Likewise, five sarpanches — who contested the panchayat elections on fake cast certificates and got elected on reserved SC seats — have also been found using the same modus operandi to get certificates. Besides the sarpanches, an excise taxation officer; junior engineer and XEN of the PSCPL department; government school teacher; and a reader to one of the SDMs in Patiala are on the list of 30 who falsified their certificates.
The department has already written to the Patiala deputy commissioner (DC) to confiscate the fake SC certificates and directed the Patiala SSP to file the FIR in all these cases. However, it has been learned that no FIR has been filed so far. The department has also asked Patiala DC to take action against nambardar and tehsildar, who facilitated these people in getting the fake SC certificates.
Mukul Bawa, district welfare officer (Patiala) said, “We have repeatedly written to the Patiala Police to register FIRs in these cases. Until now, we have not received any intimation in this regard. “
Social activist Balbir Singh, who is the complainant of this fake SC certificate racket, said the government should immediately remove these officers.
“Apart from this, action should also be taken against officers – who issued fake certificates,” Balbir said.
Jaspreet Singh, director, department of social justice empowerment & minorities, said the department has already written to DC Patiala for the action.
