Rajesh Bagha, chairman, Punjab State Commission for Scheduled Castes, on Sunday warned ineligible candidates against getting fake Scheduled Caste certificates, and said such people were robbing the benefits of eligible poor SC candidates.
He added the matter had already been taken up with the chief secretary, Punjab, and demanded that an FIR under section 420 (cheating) of the Indian Penal Code should be registered against those indulging in such practices.
In city to attend a function organised by a non-government organisation (NGO), Anti- Corruption Association of India, at Lohara village, Rajesh Bagha, asked the government to strictly work according to the law and respect the judgment of Supreme Court on the issue.
He demanded the authorities issuing SC certificates to ineligible candidates should be held accountable, and any official found guilty should be dealt with accordingly.
Bagha informed that as per the law, the scheduled castes belonging to Hindu, Sikh and Buddhist religions were eligible for SC certificates. He added he had already directed the Punjab government to launch a campaign to detect fake SC certificates on war footing and cancel them with due process of law.
Directions should be issued to all deputy commissioners to organise special camps for detecting fake certificates, he said.
Hailing the Union government for launching MUDRA Bank, he said he had already written an appreciation letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union finance minister Arun Jaitley.
This corpus fund will encourage small entrepreneurs hailing from downtrodden segment of the society to set up their own medium and small scale industrial units, he said.
“This financial assistance in the form of corpus fund to the marginalised sections will enable them to be self-reliant and self-sustainable. The Union government has taken a right decision to uplift micro-finance institutions by instituting a corpus fund of Rs 20,000 crore and credit guarantee corpus of Rs 3,000 crore through the statuary enactment,” he said.
This corpus fund will encourage small entrepreneurs hailing from downtrodden segment of the society to set up their own medium and small scale industrial units, he said.
“This financial assistance in the form of corpus fund to the marginalised sections will enable them to be self-reliant and self-sustainable. The Union government has taken a right decision to uplift micro-finance institutions by instituting a corpus fund of Rs 20,000 crore and credit guarantee corpus of Rs 3,000 crore through the statuary enactment,” he said.