Over 1,000 fake sports-quota certificates issued for government jobs; two held

Pune, Sep 8 (PTI) The Pune Police have unearthed a racket involving the distribution of more than 1,000 fake certificates of Kurash tournaments issued to candidates seeking government jobs under the sports quota, and arrested two persons, an official said on Tuesday.

The arrested accused — the president and secretary of the Maharashtra Kurash Association — allegedly fabricated records for state-level competitions that were never held, with police identifying at least 60 people who used these fraudulent documents to apply for government posts, the official said.

Kurash is a form of upright jacket wrestling that originated in Central Asia. It is an internationally recognised sport and has been played in Maharashtra since 2012 under the Kurash Association of Maharashtra, police said.

The official said that the matter came to light after the police received a complaint alleging that fake certificates were being issued in sports such as Kurash and others for candidates seeking government jobs under the sports quota.

"After receiving the complaint, we started verification. Documents obtained through an RTI application were also examined, and we found several discrepancies," he said.

The probe found that competitions held between 2016 and 2019 had been conducted by organisations unaffiliated with the Indian Kurash Association, and signatures on the certificates had allegedly been scanned and affixed, the official said.

According to the police, the two accused obtained purported participation letters from district-level associations with dates from nine to 10 years ago to create records showing that competitions had been conducted between 2016 and 2022.

Among the discrepancies found were certificates purportedly issued in 2016-17 mentioning Dharashiv as the district instead of Osmanabad, the name changed only in 2023. Similarly, certificates from the erstwhile Aurangabad district were found mentioning Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar, the officer said.

Police also found instances of certificates meant for the women's category carrying male names, while several certificates lacked serial numbers, he said.

The racket appears to have started after 2016, and more than 1,000 certificates may have been distributed, he said.

Police have identified around 60 people who allegedly took such certificates to various government departments, though the number could increase as the investigation progresses, the official said.

The accused are being interrogated, and police are collecting other evidence to establish the extent of the racket, he said.

Police are also verifying if any personnel from the police department obtained duplicate or fake certificates, he added.