Railways worried over delay in verifying caste claims of staff

The Railway Board said the illegal appointment of an employee on the basis of a false/fake caste certificate (ST/ST/OBC as the case may be) would bring him/her back to the status of initial appointment in the service. File
| Photo Credit: The Hindu

The Indian Railways is concerned over the inordinate delay in verifying the genuineness of Scheduled Caste/Scheduled Tribe/Other Backwards Classes certificates of employees.

In a note sent to General Managers of all Zonal Railways/Production Units, the Railway Board took a “very serious view” of cases of false/fake caste certificates getting detected on the verge of the retirement of the employees. In certain cases, bogus caste claims came to light after the retirement of the employees.

Reiterating its earlier instructions that the SC/ST/OBC certificates of employees should be verified and confirmed with the competent authority in the respective State Governments within one month of the staff joining service, the railways referred to a Supreme Court ruling which held that the admission or appointment wrongly obtained on the basis of false social status certificate necessarily had the effect of depriving the genuine SC/ST/OBC candidates of the benefits conferred on them by the Constitution.

The railways referred to a recent case where an employee who had joined the organisation as a Clerk rose to the rank of a Group-A officer when his caste certificate was found to be fake. The opinion of the Railway Board on terminating the services of the employee was sought since the employee was a Gazetted Officer and on the verge of his retirement.

Clarifying on the issue, the Railway Board said the illegal appointment of an employee on the basis of false/fake caste certificate (ST/ST/OBC as the case may be) would bring him/her back to the status of initial appointment in the service and accordingly, necessary action to terminate service of such employees should be taken by the respective Appointing Authority of the level of initial appointment.

Initiate verification within a week

The Railway Board referred to an order of the Department of Personnel and Training and said that the process for verification of caste certificates of employees should be initiated immediately, and a communication issued to the State/Union Territory authorities concerned within a week of his/her joining of Government service. If a verification was not received from the District Level Scrutiny Committee within one month, the matter should be escalated to the highest level to ensure that the process is completed within six months.

Instructions were given to General Managers to mention in job offer letters to employees that their appointment was provisional and subject to the caste certificates being verified through the proper channels. In cases where verification revealed that the claim was false, the services would be terminated without assigning any reasons and without prejudice to further action as per law.