Social Justice Department officials are often in a fix while issuing caste validity certificate as they come across bogus Kotwal records submitted by the applicants. As per the data compiled by the department, in Nagpur Division alone, as many as 34 per cent of Kotwal records submitted for caste validity verification have been found to be bogus or unrelated with the applicants. According to sources, Vigilance Cell of the department has found several ‘Kotwal Panji’ (Kotwal register records) to be bogus during scrutiny of documents submitted by the applicants. There have been cases in which two different applicants with different surnames submitting the Kotwal record regarding the same person. In such cases, both the applicants cited the person of whom the Kotwal record was submitted as their grandfather or great grandfather or some distant old relative.

 

When the officials concerned asked the applicants about their surname and that of their grandfather/distant old relative being different, the applicants gave lame reason that their grandfather/distant old relative had gone missing for some years relinquishing everything due to his inclination towards spirituality. Interestingly, this reason has been cited by many applicants as if they have been tutored to give the same standard reply to questions by officials, said the sources. As far as data relating to Kotwal records is concerned, between August 2020 and August 2022, the department’s Vigilance Cell conducted a scrutiny of 92 such records and found that 39 of them were genuine. However, 17 of these records were not issued officially. In 15 cases the records were issued but the person mentioned in them was not at all related to the applicants. In 21 other cases, the records were old but were issued officially. Further, some applicants were found to have submitted the documents procured from schools that were either not in existence or whose approval had been revoked long ago. In some cases, the officials came across the documents of advanced classes issued by recognised schools that did not have those classes.

 

As per the data accessed by ‘The Hitavada’, in case of 15 recent applications with which school certificates were submitted, the recognition of schools was found to have been revoked in nine cases. After verification of certificates attached with applications, Social Justice Department has prepared a list of ‘suspected schools’ too. Asked about the issue, Surendra Pawar, Deputy Commissioner, Social Justice Department, Nagpur Division, told ‘The Hitavada’ that the department had been conducting seminars to create awareness regarding documents required and the process of caste validity certificates. “We have been appealing to the applicants not to submit bogus records. For, we cannot help the people on the basis of bogus documents. We can take appropriate decision based on whatever genuine documents the applicants submit. People should not fall prey to touts, or give them money. Because, that serves no purpose,” he said. Regarding the cases in which documents submitted were found to be bogus, he said that the department sent a report to District Collectorate on regular basis.