Fake sports certificate racket busted in Pune police recruitment

A major racket has come to light in the Pune police recruitment process, in which candidates allegedly got jobs under the sports quota using bogus certificates. Fake sports certificates for Kurash and dragon boat racing were allegedly prepared and sold to candidates. Notably, an error in a single word led investigators to the root of the entire racket.

Investigators noticed that some certificates prepared in 2018-19 bore the names Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar and Dharashiv. At the time, these two cities were actually named Aurangabad and Osmanabad, since the renaming took place only in 2023. This raised the question of how names that came into existence after 2023 appeared on documents prepared in 2018-19. Following this lead, police began verifying the certificates, which exposed the racket.

Pune Police Commissioner Amitesh Kumar has taken a strict stance on the matter. According to police, 19 people had been appointed to the Pune police force on the strength of these fake sports certificates. The commissioner said the process of cancelling all their appointments is underway.

According to the investigation, since 2016, an estimated 1,200 to 1,500 people across the state are suspected of having paid between Rs 3 lakh and Rs 5 lakh each to buy fake sports certificates. Based on this preliminary estimate, the total transaction could run up to around Rs 75 crore. However, the exact scale of the scam, the number of certificates and the number of beneficiaries will become clear only once the investigation is complete.

Police said the certificates were prepared and handed to candidates even when sports inspectors were not present and without official competition records, fee receipts or photographs of the athletes. The investigation found that these certificates were used to claim the 5 percent sports quota in government jobs.

A case was registered at Shivajinagar police station on a complaint by Senior Police Inspector Deepak Lagad. Acting on it, the crime branch arrested Ankush Vitthal Nagar, president of the Maharashtra State Kurash Association, and its secretary Shivaji Salunkhe.

Suspecting large-scale financial transactions through the fake certificates, police have also begun examining the finances of those involved. Letters have been sent to the registration and stamps department and the income tax department to obtain details of property and financial transactions. The investigation is ongoing into whether anyone else is involved, how many certificates were prepared in total, and how many people secured government jobs using them.

While considerable planning had gone into preparing these fake certificates, it was the very names Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar and Dharashiv used on them that became the thread leading to the root of the racket. The case moved forward from the suspicion raised by post-2023 names appearing on 2018-19 documents. Attention is now on who else may be behind the racket and the exact number of people who secured government jobs using fake certificates.