New Delhi: For at least six months, a well-oiled Delhi racket issued 100-plus fake caste certificates in exchange of money and swelled to pocket Rs 35-40 lakh from illegal operations.
The Delhi Police’s crime branch had received a tip-off early this year about a syndicate functioning in the national capital after which the investigating team of Crime Branch started deploying decoys to catch the culprits red handed.
Four people, including an executive magistrate (tehsildar), have been arrested so far for allegedly issuing these fake certificates. These certificates, according to the police, are available on the Delhi government portal.
According to sources, the accused would allegedly rope in someone from the reserved categories for the authentication process and then issue the fake caste certificate to the person of the non-reserved category.
How the racket worked
“On 13 March, Inspector Sunil Kalkhande — upon receipt of tip-off — sent a decoy applicant to a person suspected to be a key person for getting an OBC Certificate. He was issued the certificate by the Department of Revenue, Delhi government for Rs 3,500. It was also uploaded by the department’s website,” DCP, Crime Branch, Rakesh Paweriya said.
A week on, another decoy customer was sent and managed to get the certificate for Rs 3,000. This certificate, according to the DCP, is also available on the same website.
Since both these payments were made online, the police teams started tracing the bank account details. On 9 May, the police team apprehended Saurabh Gupta from Delhi’s Sangam Vihar.
“Upon checking the phone, we found chats between him and the decoys. We also found snapshots and PDF files of many documents in the data of his mobile phone,” the DCP said.
The Crime Branch then registered an FIR under Sections 420 (cheating), 468 (forgery) and 120B (criminal conspiracy) of IPC on 10 May. Gupta was arrested the same day and interrogated. Based on the details revealed by him, the Crime Branch arrested three more persons including the executive magistrate.
According to the police, Gupta revealed that he came in contact with accused Chetan Yadav who earlier worked as a service provider on the 1076 helpline of the Delhi government. Another accused Waris Ali worked as driver of the arrested magistrate Narender Pal Singh.
“They hatched a plan to earn money by issuing various kinds of certificates from the revenue department. Gupta used to apply for issuing certificates on behalf of the candidate on the website and upload their fake documents like resident proof, caste certificate of any other member family of relative and identity documents. Then he shared details of the applicant to Yadav and also transferred money against each such case,” the DCP said.
“Yadav used to forward and share details of applicant and application numbers to Waris Ali and also transfer money after deducting his share. Ali used to approve the case by using the digital signature of the executive magistrate and upload the certificate on the website after paying the money to the magistrate.”
While Gupta is a vegetable seller, Ali had earlier worked as a data entry operator in the Central Public Works Department.
“We are now zeroing down on all those who had procured these certificates and will be questioning them. They were using it for admissions. Further investigation is on,” a senior police officer told ThePrint.
(Edited by Tikli Basu)