Bolangir: Cracking the whip against fraudulent activities in the education sector, the Bolangir district education department has dismissed four government teachers from service who had reportedly grabbed the jobs by furnishing fake educational certificates.
The accused teachers were identified as Mrinmayee Panda, a Hindi teacher at Randa High School under Puintala block, Sanjit Pani Mahananda, TGT (Arts) teacher at Gandapatrapali High School under Saintala block, Bir Prasad Naik, TGT (PCM) teacher at Dharam Singh High School at Sulekela under Belpada block and Alma Toppo, TGT (Arts) teacher at Bangomunda Girls’ High School in the district. During certificate verification, it was found that these four teachers had provided fake certificates for getting the teaching jobs. After the scam was detected, the DEO issued show-cause notices to the four accused teachers but only Panda was apprehended while the others managed to abscond.
A written complaint was lodged at the town police station by the district education department. Acting upon the complaint, town police registered a case and first arrested Hindi teacher Mrinmayee Panda of Randa High School, August 10 and forwarded her to court. After her bail application was rejected she was sent to judicial custody. The accused Hindi teacher has been on the job since 2013 by providing a fake certificate and was drawing the salary of a regular teacher since 2019.
At first, the fake certificate racket exposed during the certificate verification for the recruitment of some posts in the Postal department at Bolangir in March. Initially, police arrested 19 accused and after interrogation, police found that the chain of fake certificate racket was spread across various departments. After getting information that many persons have got jobs by providing fake certificates of out-of-state education boards in Bolangir education department, certificates of around 200 employees have been sent for verification by the district education department.