BHOPAL: The National Commission for Scheduled Tribes (NCST) will soon petition the Supreme Court for directing High Courts in different states to expedite trial in cases pertaining to non-scheduled tribe individuals having used fake caste certificates to secure government jobs reserved for ST category.
“We’ll soon petition the apex court for speedy trial in cases which have been filed in various high courts against high powered scrutiny committees orders that annulled the fake caste certificates on the basis of which several lakhs non-ST individuals managed to get government jobs reserved for ST category,” NCST vice chairperson Anusuiya Uikey said on Friday.
A former Rajya Sabha member and state vice president of ruling BJP in Madhya Pradesh, Uikey was part of the NCST team led by commission chief Nand Kumar Sai that took stock of the condition of the scheduled tribe population in tribal-dominated Chhindwara and Hoshangabad districts over last three days.
“The high-powered scrutiny committees have been constituted in states in pursuance of the apex court guidelines. In a large number of cases, these committees detected that non-ST individuals had secured schedule tribe category government jobs by turning ST candidates through fabricated caste certificates,” she added.
Once the committees detected the anomaly, annulled the fake caste certificates and recommended for action against such government servants, the beneficiary individuals petitioned High Courts and got the order of committees stayed.
“Not only will we petition the Supreme Court for expediting trial in such cases pending for years, but will also write to respective state governments for directing their legal eagles, including advocate generals to get the stays vacated in such cases in the High Court,” said Uikey.
Sharing the details about such cases, Uikey said a maximum of such cases has been detected in Maharashtra, where around 4 lakh to 5 lakh non-ST candidates secured jobs under the category using fake ST certificates over the last several years.
“Also, around 5,000 such matters have been detected in Uttar Pradesh and the respective district collectors have already started the process of annulling the appointment and taking legal action against wrongdoers,” added Uikey.
Stressing on the need for resolving complaints related to securing of jobs on the basis of fake caste certificates at the earliest, the NCST chairperson and BJP’s powerful tribal politician from Chhattisgarh, Nand Kumar Sai admitted that the high-powered state-level scrutiny (Chhaan Been) committees needed to be more responsive.
“High-powered committees exist formally in several states. Nonetheless, these committees are not as dynamic as they are supposed to be,” he said. “The Commission has written to states that these committees should meet on a regular basis and the commission should be informed about these meetings,” he added.
Observing that high-powered committees are quite forceful in Maharashtra and Chhattisgarh, Sai noted that these committees need to be more potent in Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Odisha and Uttar Pradesh.