In an important move, divisional commissioner Sanjay Dube on Thursday suspended a civil surgeon Dr Ratan Khandelwal in connection with his involvement in fake birth certificates in the district hospital. The suspension order was served on Dr Khandelwal here on Thursday morning following a report of three-member committee. The committee in its report submitted last week had indicted Dr Khandelwal for his role in issuing a fake birth certificate to a person sometime back Confirming this, the district chief medical and health officer Dr S Porwal here today said that charge the civil surgeon has been given to Dr Dilip Acharya.
Following complaint against a temporary computer operator in the district hospital, Vipin Verma for his alleged role in making fake birth certificates in the district hospital, the district collector in April this year had constituted a three-member committee comprising Dr Pravin Zadia, Dr G l Sodhi and Sunil Chaddha to look into the matter.
During the course of probe, Verma had told committee that he had been making fake birth certificates on the directive of civil surgeon Dr Ratan Khandelwal.’
Forgery in birth certificates had been detected by the Passport office in March this year wherein an applicant had submitted an online birth certificate to the passport office. On the basis of suspicion, the passport office had written a letter to the civil surgeon in March asking him to probe into the birth certificate. According to the rule, the government hospitals were authorized to issue birth certificates from 2007 onward, while the government had made arrangement for issuing birth certificates from 2015. Contrary to these provisions, the passport applicant had submitted an online birth certificate of the year 1991.
The committee in its report also found that the district hospital had issued certificates of two children who were born before the establishment of district hospital.