Ministries asked to collect information about appointments made on the basis of fake caste certificates

THE department of personnel and training (DoPT) has instructed various ministries and departments of the government of India to collect information about appointments made on the basis of fake or false caste certificates and follow up actions taken thereon. It has given a deadline of July 15, 2017 to all the ministries and departments. The new action has been initiated in the backdrop of regular…

references that the DoPT gets from the ministries regarding appointments made on the basis of fake/false caste certificates. The instructions of an office memorandum (OM) issued in as early as May 1993 and reiterated by another OM issued in January 2013, clearly provide that a government servant should not be retained if it is found that the officer had furnished false information or produced a false certificate in order to secure appointment. “Thus when an appointing authority comes to know that an employee had submitted a false/fake caste certificate, it has to initiate action to remove or dismiss such an employee from service as per the provisions of relevant Service Rules”, said an offie memorandum issued by the DOPT on June 1, 2017. 

The OM further said: “All the Ministries/Departments are requested to collect information from all organisations under their administrative control about the cases where the candidates got/alleged to have got appointment against vacancies reserved for Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Classes on the basis of false/fake caste certificate and send a consolidated report in this regard in the enclosed proforma to this Department by 15.07.2017 positively”. 

The proforma with the caste of the officer, the post in which she was appointed, present post, the authority which issued the caste certificate, current status of the case, action taken etc., was attached with the June 1, 2017 office memorandum. 

It’s however not clear from the office memorandums, both issued earlier and now, on whether the government merely sacks its employees (a maximum punishment) for managing an appointment with a fake certificate, or it actually initiates any criminal proceedings towards the errant officers.