Post News Network
Baripada Jan 29: Bahalda tehsildar landed in a soup after he cancelled a caste certificate issued by him to an ST girl. A complaint against cancellation of the caste certificate was lodged with district collector Rajesh Prabhakar Patil January 22.
Hearing the case, the collector made it clear that the tehsildar cannot cancel the caste certificate and asked the district vigilance monitoring committee to thoroughly probe the case and submit a report.
Till the report was available, the certificate will remain valid.
The kind of certificate to be issued to the beneficiary and kind of action to be taken against the officer for ‘misusing’ position will be decided after the report is submitted. The collector has also put a stay on the cancellation of the certificate.
According to the report, the caste certificate issued to Swarnaprabha Tamudai will remain valid till the report is available. Swarnaprabha, daughter of Jairam Tamudai of Bahalda area, serves with a bank at Jharsuguda. Bahalda tehsildar Mukutamanu Khes March 26, 2012 had issued her a caste certificate, identifying her as ST (Telibhoomija).
In 2013, the bank authorities had sent a letter to the tehsildar to verify the caste certificate produced by Swarnaprabha. The concerned tehsildar August 6, 2013 cancelled her caste certificate and further issued a fresh caste certificate, but identifying her as ‘General’.
The teshsildar explained that Swarnaprabha had fraudulently obtained the certificate. Interestingly, the tehsildar had himself issued the caste certificate.
Worried over this development, Swarnaprabha sought the help of lawyer Sushil Patra, who took up the matter with the district collector.
Patra said the Orissa Caste Certificate Rule-1980 says certificates should be issued to people after proper verification. Those who have land, their caste can be known from land records.
But the castes of those, who are landless and homeless, will be determined only after a thorough probe about their social lifestyle and customs.
In such cases, the revenue and disaster management department had issued a letter January 9, 2009, to all district collectors.
Contacted, the tehsildar refused to make any comment as the collector has ordered a probe into it.