A Reserve Bank of India (RBI) officer was on Friday arrested and sent to jail on charge of getting his job by producing a fake caste certificate.
He was identified as Prasant Kumar Pradhan (58) of Bastangia village in the district. His certificate was found to be fake after he did the job for
last 36 years.
Though Pradhan belonged to the Scheduled Caste, he produced a Scheduled Tribe certificate to the RBI authorities and got appointment as a typist. Meanwhile, Pradhan had been promoted to the post of assistant manager.
“Pradhan was arrested under various Sections of IPC on the basis of an FIR filed by Kandhamal District Welfare Officer (DWO) Paramananda Prusty,” Tikabali police station IIC lN Tiwari said.
The DWO lodged the complaint after a State-level scrutiny committee, inquiring into the issue of fake caste certificate in the State, confirmed forgery by Pradhan.
With this, the number of persons arrested in fake caste certificate case in Kandhamal district shot up to 40 in last two years. Those arrested include engineers, teachers, and members and former members of gram panchayats.