BENGALURU: Law and Parliamentary Affairs Minister JC Madhuswamy on Tuesday clarified that the State Government will not take lightly cases of upper caste people availing Scheduled Caste benefits with fake caste certificates.
“The government will not tolerate such incidents and a clear-cut circular has been issued in this regard. I will instruct the Social Welfare Department secretary concerned to look into the matter. Disciplinary action will be initiated against the guilty, including officials responsible for issuing fake certificates,” he told the Assembly.
BJP MLAs P Rajiv, M P Kumaraswamy and N Mahesh, and JD(S)’s Dr K Annadani raised the issue and expressed concern that no one has been punished till date for claiming SC benefits through fake caste certificates.
Madhuswamy replied that in 1997, the Centre had included ‘beda jangama’ or ‘budga jangama’ in the SC list of 101 castes, against serial number 19. But there were instances of some people availing fake certificate despite not being from that caste.