NAGPUR: A scam seems to be thriving at the local Tehsildar’s office with touts selling fake income certificates to unscrupulous parents who want free school admissions under the Right to Education Act (RTE) quota. Over 500 income certificates submitted to schools this academic session are now under the scanner. TOI has accessed documents that prove the existence of forged certificates.

In its internal investigation, the Tehsildar’s office has identified fake income certificates and notified schools about it. Under RTE, children from families with annual income less than Rs1 lakh are eligible to get free admissions.

Premchand Raut , district coordinator for RTE admissions, said, “Final number of fake certificates is still awaited from the Tehsildar’s office. It all started with schools approaching us about certain parents whom they doubted were definitely earning more than the Rs1 lakh threshold. But since they submitted a certificate from the Tehsildar’s office, not much could done. So, now a pool of suspected cases has been prepared and sent to the Tehsildar for verification.”

A state board school near Deekshabhoomi had sent 16 suspect income certificates for verification at the start of the current academic session. The Tehsildar’s office then starting matching the inward/outward numbers on files and tracking down where these certificates originated from.

Shahid Sharif , founder of NGO RTE Action Committee , said, “The Tehsildar gave a written reply mentioning that 11 of those certificates have not been issued by his office. It’s clear that some touts, maybe even in connivance with government officials, are selling these fake certificates to parents. We suspect thousands of admissions in the city have been done using these fake documents. This means that there are thousands of genuine students who have been denied admissions because of cheats.”

Raut said once all certificates are verified, action will be taken against the guilty parents. “When admissions are given, parents have to submit an affidavit which clearly mentions that if any of the documents are found to be fake, the admission will be cancelled. Schools can exercise their power to cancel admission citing misrepresentation of facts,” said Raut. But Sharif feels more needs to be done to prevent future fraudsters. “Criminal proceedings should be initiated against such parents and the education department must take the lead in doing so. A genuine child’s right has been stolen because of a con man and hence this straightaway calls for a police case to be registered,” said Sharif.

