No discrepancy in marksheet8217;

MAY 5: In their effort to prove that Baldev Singh, a key witness in the encounters inquiry case, had forged his marksheet while applying for the post of assistant station officer with the Fire Brigade, the Mumbai police produced their own witness who claimed there was no discrepancy between the post8217;s requirement and the marksheet submitted by the applicant.

The minimum requirement was a graduation degree with a second class in Chemistry and the applicant8217;s marksheet certified Baldev as a graduate in the same subject, said Assistant Divisional Officer with the Fire Brigade, Ashok Kamble.However, Baldev in an earlier deposition had claimed the marksheet he had submitted certified him as a graduate in Physics, saying he was unable to explain how the one with the Fire Brigade mentioned Chemistry as his major.Counsels for Mumbai police Harshad Ponda and Usha Kejriwal claimed that Baldev was selected for the post but chose not to take the job as he was required to produce his original marksheet which mentionedhis major as Physics. They said if he was forced to produce the original certificate he would have been caught telling a lie.However, P A Sebastian, counsel for the Committee for Protection of Democratic Rights CPDR, refuted Ponda8217;s allegation, saying Baldev had produced his original marksheet and is being falsely implicated in a forgery. He said the Fire Brigade, while scrutinising applications, should have checked all the documents annexed with them.Defending Baldev, Sebastian said a certificate for excellence in sports obtained by his client, which was also annexed with the application, indicates that he had majored in Physics.In his reply during cross-examination by Sebastian, Kamble said only the marksheet is checked to ascertain the applicants8217; educational qualifications.Earlier, advocate Ashok Sarogi, who had filed affidavits on behalf of Baldev, Anand Pawle, Anita Pawle and Hausabai Tawde, who had retracted their initial affidavits, also deposed before the commission today.

During theexamination-in-chief by Ponda, he said that on March 26, 1998, he was instructed by Anita and Hausabai to prepare affidavits on their behalf retracting their March 2 affidavits. He said the affidavits were submitted to the court on March 27, and on March 29, Anand Pawle and Baldev Singh had come to his office asking him to prepare affidavits on their behalf. All they did was make certain minor changes in the draft applications, Sarogi said. Pawle8217;s brother Anand and sister Hausabai as well as Anand8217;s wife Anita, have stuck by their second affidavit, maintaining they had not witnessed the September 26, 1997, encounter in which gangsters Sada Pawle and Vijay Tandel had been shot dead. They maintained that they were in Shirdi when the encounter took place while Baldev maintains that he was a witness to the shootout.