Calcutta High Court BSF news: The Calcutta High Court has refused relief to a man who was found to have used forged documents to land a job with the BSF and remained in service for over three decades till his termination. The court said that the BSF could have taken a “stricter” action against the constable by recovering his salary paid during his service period.

While hearing a plea of a former BSF constable challenging his 2021 termination order, Justice Amrita Sinha has dismissed his plea.

“The authority could have taken a stricter stand by deciding to recover the salary paid to the petitioner as long as he was in service, which he is not entitled to, being ineligible for the same. The recruiting authority has every right to initiate disciplinary proceedings against an employee at any point in his service career, the moment it is detected that fraud was practiced at the time of service entry,” the court said on April 1.

Underscoring that the employer cannot retain an employee if he does not possess the basic qualification to get the job, the order noted that it is common practice in service jurisprudence that, any time after appointment, if it is detected that the document relied upon by the candidate is false, fake, or forged, then his service becomes liable to be terminated.

The petitioner, Santosh Sardar, joined the BSF as a constable (general duty) on February 28, 1989. Although a verification process began as early as 1992, conclusive evidence of forgery did not emerge until later due to repeated verification attempts and various legal challenges.

A criminal case was registered against him in 2002 under sections 458 (punishes lurking house-trespass or house-breaking by night after preparation for hurt, assault, or wrongful restraint) and 420 (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property) of the IPC. The petitioner was arrested on March 11, 2002, and released on bail on April 26, 2002.

In 2021, a Petty Security Force Court (PFSC) proceeding was initiated against him on five charges, and found guilty of providing false information during enrolment. The court sentenced him to dismissal from service along with 15 months of rigorous imprisonment.

The court noted that the BSF constable was provided sufficient opportunities to disprove the allegations levelled against him, which he failed to do, and on the contrary, he admitted his guilt and accepted that he failed in the secondary examination and was not in a position to reappear in the said examination.

Emphasising that he was aware of the fact that the BSF constable was ineligible to get into service, the court added that the petitioner fraudulently forged his mark sheet and produced the same at the time of credential verification.

“As the documents relied upon by the petitioner were not found in the records of the authority, the petitioner was asked to provide originals of the same. On further verification of his educational certificates, the documents relied upon by him could not be traced. It is only then that the authority came to a conclusive finding that the concerned documents were forged,” the court observed.

The court further remarked that the submission of the BSF constable that the evidence of the headmaster cannot be relied upon cannot come to his aid, because, according to the law of evidence, facts admitted need not be proved.

“As the statutory authority opined against the document relied upon by the petitioner, the evidence of the headmaster will not make much of a difference.

The submission of the petitioner that, had the verification process been conducted in a proper time, and the proceeding could have been concluded during his initial service career, then he could have had the time to look for a different job to maintain his life and livelihood, is not convincing enough to interfere with the sentence imposed upon him,” Justice Sinha noted.