Private sector, too, is prone to scourge of fake caste certificates

On July 6, the Supreme Court of India ruled that the people who obtained jobs on fake caste certificates should be removed from service with immediate effect. This judgment sets aside the Bombay High Court decision that if a person has stayed in a government job for long on the basis of a fake caste certificate, he may not be removed from service. While the judgment has immediate implications for persons who are in government jobs on fake caste certificates, this scrutiny is important for the private sector as well. This is because people who have obtained degrees based on fake caste certificates exist not only in the government but also in the private sector. And their existence poses an imminent danger to any private entity, due to doubtful bona fides of such employees.

These numbers may not be negligible enough to be overlooked. Alongside 25.2 per cent of genuine Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribes population as per a 2011 census, there are scores of others who claim these reservations through fraudulent means. They get priority admissions and concessional entry into professional colleges. With a degree in hand, these persons come to the job market. Besides the government sector, quite a large number of people seek employment in the private sector. While the private sector does a background check of candidates, at the entry level, this screening is mostly limited to the degree obtained. Caste is not checked.

One reason why caste certificates are not verified in private sector jobs is, primarily, the fact that there is no reservation on the basis of caste in this domain. While this may be true, simply verifying educational qualifications prior to making a job offer may be misleading as the education itself might have been obtained on fake grounds. A person who obtained a degree on the basis of a fake caste certificate certainly has doubtful integrity. These employees might lead to serious issues in a corporate environment at a later stage.

Such scrutiny is easier for government jobs. The government has set up a machinery to review caste claims. Caste verification acts have been passed by almost all the states. Acts provide for verification of caste certificates of candidates on applications made by government authorities, educational institutions and cooperative societies. There are caste validation committees that are set up at district levels. The validation committee, headed by the additional collector, includes research officials from the social welfare department and police officers. Their main responsibility is to verify all the facts about every individual caste, and ensure that the certificate is genuine. An appeal against any decision of the caste verification committee can lie before the High Court as per provisions of Article 226. Most verification is done at the time of making an offer of government jobs. Instances of educational institutions getting the verification done are quite minimal.

Since verifications done by educational institutions are minuscule — the likelihood of a person with fake certificate getting admitted to an educational institution is quite high. Due to this, it is imperative that the validity of caste certificates be verified even in private jobs. This may not be for the purposes of reservation, but is important to exclude people with a doubtful background.  

Even available statistics — for instance a 2014 study of corporate frauds by the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners, which reported revenue losses of around 5 per cent by organisations each year due to employee fraud — supports this added check by corporate India. Suitable amendments in the Acts of states, to provide this facility of caste verification to private companies, will help in screening people who started their careers on the basis of fake caste certificates. If the problem was serious enough to be addressed with all urgency by the apex court for government employees, it’s needless to say that the private sector can neglect caste verification at its own peril.

The author is an IPS officer who is currently the ADG in Maharashtra, and is a certified information system security professional.