CBI investigation in a major fake certificate scam in Shimla’s postal department has hinted, at the initial stage, towards the complicity of officials within the department for letting unscrupulous candidates use forged documents during the recruitment process.
The fake document racket is believed to have its network spread across several states, including Tamil Nadu and Odisha, said sources.
While questioning suspects in the Himachal scam, CBI is also studying the common links between similar fake certificate scams in postal departments of other states. For instance, during the recruitment in the postal department in Odisha, fake certificates were manufactured by gangs which sold certificates of more than 40 institutions spread across the country for Rs 50,000 to Rs 5 lakh.
It has also come to the knowledge that some Himachal Pradesh-based public servants and private persons were also involved in this big scam of preparation/issuances of forged marksheets of several candidates, said an investigator.
In Himachal, the scam came to light during the verification of documents of a new recruit, Kundan Kumar, a resident of Punjab’s Ludhiana. He has been formally named in a complaint given to the CBI in November 2023 for probing the cheating, forgery and criminal conspiracy.
Kumar was serving as Gramin Dak Sevak/Branch Post Master in Bilaspur since October 2021 when his “certificate fraud” came to light in August 2023.
Kumar has been accused by the postal department of dishonestly and fraudulently getting recruited using forged documents and cheating the Government of India of Rs 3.83 lakh in his 22-month tenure.
His Class 10 marksheet, purportedly issued by the State Board of School Examinations (Secs) and Board of Higher Secondary Examinations, Tamil Nadu, turned out to be fake during a verification exercise.
The postal department’s complaint said, “Verification has revealed that the certificate/ mark sheet was not issued by the Directorate of Government Examinations, Chennai and not found on their records.”
A mandatory educational qualification specified for the post included Secondary School Examination pass certificate of 10th standard with passing marks in Mathematics, local language and English “(having been studied as compulsory or elective subjects conducted…by any recognized Board of School Education by the Government of India/State Governments/ Union Territories in India.”
Compulsory knowledge of local language was also required for the post. At the time of inviting the applications, the postal department had stipulated that candidate should have studied the local language – Hindi in case of Himachal Pradesh—at least up to 10th standard [as compulsory or, elective, subjects] as declared by the State Government or as per constitutional provisions relating to the 8th schedule of Constitution of India.
A CBI source said that they are awaiting the forensic report of the mark sheet given by Kundan Kumar and started questioning postal department employees.
Sources said there are indications that a few department employees and some documentation centres’ agents were in constant touch with each other.
“We have not ruled out the possibility of involvement of department insiders in the scam,” said a CBI investigator.
The postal department and investigators suspect the role of outside state players because the postal departments in some other states had gotten replies from certain boards that the certificates were genuine though these turned out to be fake as conceded by the applicants.