NEW DELHI: Supreme Court has rewarded a wrongdoer – a man who got appointed as a junior civil engineer in Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai (MCGM) by producing a forged ST certificate, and, subsequently, stalled the scrutiny of his eligibility for quota for more than a decade – by allowing him to superannuate in peace with retirement benefits.Shirish P Patil got a certificate in 1984 by identifying himself as belonging to the ‘Tokre Koli’ Scheduled Tribe community. Based on the certificate, he was appointed a junior civil engineer in MCGM in 1994. He misplaced the original ST certificate but managed to secure a fresh one from the sub-divisional magistrate, Bhusawal division, in Oct 2000.Following scrutiny initiated by MCGM, the Police Vigilance Cell traced Patil’s family history and found that his ancestors had been recorded as ‘Koli’, ‘Hindu Koli’ and ‘Hindu Suryawanshi Koli’, none of which belonged to the ST category. In July 2009, MCGM issued a show cause notice to Patil.He successfully dodged and delayed proceedings before the scrutiny committee until Jan 2020, when the panel rejected his plea that his lawyer and elderly family members were not available, and invalidated the ST certificate. HC dismissed his appeal against cancellation of ST status.
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SC, however, stayed Patil’s dismissal from service through an interim order on Nov 18, 2021. As a result, the engineer continued to serve until June 30, 2025, when he retired after being employed with MCGM for more than three decades based on a forged ST certificate.A bench of Justices Aravind Kumar and Vipul M Pancholi Thursday upheld the cancellation of Patil’s ST certificate and Bombay HC order. However, it took a lenient view given his undertaking that he or any of his family members “shall (not) be entitled to claim any future benefit on the basis of the invalidated ST certificate”.The ruling contrasts with SC’s consistent rulings against benefits accruing to people who forge SC or ST certificates to gain admission or employment.
