How a tehsildar in Delhi issued caste certificates to general candidates illegally — for Rs 3,000

In March, Inspector Sunil Kumar Kalkhande of the Delhi Police’s Crime Branch received information about a racket allegedly involved in issuing caste certificates to applicants from non-reserved groups. On March 13, a decoy applicant proceeded to procure an OBC certificate. On a mere payment of Rs 3,500, the applicant received the certificate, which was later uploaded to the Delhi government’s Revenue Department website. A week later, another decoy operation on March 20 saw a second applicant receiving a similar certificate for an even lesser amount — Rs 3,000.

Four persons allegedly involved in the racket were eventually arrested. Police said more than a 100 illegal caste certificates were seized, some of which were even registered on the Delhi government portal.

Police said a specialised team was formed to bust the racket. On May 9, the team arrested one Saurabh Gupta from Sangam Vihar. On checking his phone, police retrieved the chats he had with the two decoy applicants along with snapshots and PDF files of the incriminating documents. When questioned, Gupta allegedly said he collaborated with Chetan Yadav, Waris Ali, and Narinder Pal Singh to issue certificates illegally through the Delhi Cantonment Branch of the Revenue Department.

“On questioning, he broke down and admitted to having issued those OBC certificates,” said DCP (Crime Branch) Rakesh Paweriya.

A case was filed against Gupta under IPC sections 420 (cheating), 468 (forgery for the purpose of cheating), and 120B (criminal conspiracy).

Police arrested Yadav, a contract worker at the tehsildar’s office, on May 14; Ali, the driver of the tehsildar, on May 22; and Singh, the tehsildar, on May 27.

Police learnt that Yadav met Gupta in January. Since then, along with Ali and Singh, they orchestrated the scheme to issue illegal certificates.

“Gupta used to apply for the certificates on behalf of the candidate on the Revenue Department’s website and upload their fake documents such as resident proof, caste certificate etc. Thereafter, he would share the details of each applicant and their application number, along with the money, with Yadav,” said DCP Paweriya.

Yadav would then forward the details of each applicant to Ali along with the money after deducting his share from it, said police. Thereafter, Ali would approve the certificate using the tehsildar’s digital signature and upload the certificate on the website, after paying a cut to Singh, they added.

Police have also seized a laptop and mobile phone from Ali, multiple hard drives and pamphlets from Gupta, additional hard drives, digital signatures, and over a 100 fraudulently obtained caste certificates from the tehsildar’s office, and Singh’s mobile phone.