Navy recruitment drive busts fake certificate racket

Scrutiny of documents by the recruitment and the district authorities during the Navy recruitment drive at Paljor Stadium today [14 Oct 2015] led to the discovery of a candidate who had managed to secure fake domiciles and educational certificates. What is more, he is suspected to have been one among at least six who had been provided with fake documents to attempt getting recruited from Sikkim.

Another fake CoI case busted

GANGTOK, 23 Jan: The Sikkim Police has been tracing and weeding out fake Sikkim Subject Certificates and Certificates of Identification, some of which were “fraudulently” made decades ago.
In another instance of such a fake certificate the CID has unearthed the SSC of one Indra Bahadur Dahal to be a fake. The said accused person is reportedly a resident of Lakhimpur district in Assam and presently residing in Jorethang.
As per reports the accused had fraudulently entered the Sikkim government service by producing a fake school certificate of Ranka School along with the SSC of one Kul Bahadur Adhikari of Lingdok, East Sikkim. IB Dahal and entered the government service as a ‘Mali’ in the Forest Department in the year 1983. Furthermore, it is reported that he had impersonated Kul Bahadur Adhikari and had used his SSC; Kul Bahadur is a bonafide SSC holder but has been residing in Nepal the past 30 years or so.

Jorethang police foil fake COI case

GANGTOK, 03 Jan: The Jorethang police has registered a criminal case against one Sona Lepcha of Denchong basti, South Sikkim and his 4 sons for having obtained their Certificates of Identification through fraudulent means.
Acting upon a complaint lodged with the SP [South], the Jorethang police began a suo moto investigation on the report that Phurden Lepcha, son of Sona Lepcha had made his Certificate of Identification by way of cheating.
An investigation by the police later found that Sona Lepcha and his four sons had obtained their domicile documents fraudulently through the Sikkim Subject Certificate of one Tshering Wangdi Lepcha by having named the latter as the older brother of Sona Lepcha. It was later revealed that Tshering Wangdi Lepcha is actually the husband of Sona’s sister. The accused are in the process of being arrested.

RTI Forum demands legal action against fake COI holders

GANGTOK, 10 April: Sikkim RTI Forum has warned that if the concerned authorities did not take appropriate legal action against the proven and cancelled 212 fake Certificate of Identification holders within one month, the Forum will file a joint FIR against these 212 fake COI holders.
The Forum revealed today that according to information furnished by the Land Revenue Department on an RTI application by it, the authorities have cancelled 212 COIs as fake till date. This cancellation, the Forum points out, proves that the concerned authority was aware that these COIs were obtained through illegal means. But cancellation is not enough, and since illegal means were used to procure such certificates, legal action needs to be taken against holders of such COI’s, the Forum argues.
Addressing a press conference today, general secretary DK Chettri and vice-president GR Rai of the Forum demanded that appropriate action be taken against government officials and employees involved in issuing these fake COIs.
The Forum has also demanded termination of services of those with fake COIs and that the government’s money spent on training students with fake COIs be redeemed as well.
Mr Chettri stated that if the authorities can file an FIR against a person for obtaining Residential Certificate by illegal means then the same should be the case for fake COI holders as well.
The Forum also released some documents of a fake COI holder which showed that the person, currently employed with the Forest Department, had his name in the voters’ lists of both Sikkim and West Bengal on the basis of fake Panchayat recommendation. According to the Forum the case of this officer is under investigation.
According to the Forum, amongst the 31,180 fake COI holders in the state, even if 30% of them are in government jobs, the system is depriving about 10,000 Sikkimese of their rights and if every two of 31,180 has one child, then there will be another 16,000 more fake COI holders in the making, resulting in a total of 47,000 outsiders enjoying the rights of a Sikkimese citizen.