Jalna:
Almost over five years after he took voluntary retirement, a teacher who was allegedly recruited on the basis of fake certificates and served Zilla Parishad schools for two decades has been booked along with his accomplice for fraud, police said today.
The genuine documents of the accomplice were used by accused Ramesh Laxman Kelkar to secure the job, the Kadim Jalna police, where the complaint of fraud has been registered, said.
A probe by the education department revealed that both the accused and his accomplice had identical names.
According to police, accused Ramesh Kelkar, a resident of Sindhkedraja who failed his intermediate exam on February 8, 1985 had applied for teacher's job in the education department of the district civic administration.
To get the job, he presented genuine documents of D.Ed and SSC of another man with the same name, who hails from his village.
Kelkar submitted these genuine documents to the education department, got the job and served for 20 years in different schools run by the district civic administration. Surprisingly, nobody suspected him until February 29, 2008, after which he took voluntary retirement and also began availing pension benefits.
Later, when the education department received a complaint against him and investigated the matter, it was found that Kelkar who had failed his XII standard exams, had submitted a D.Ed certificate and SSC marks certificate of another person with the same name.
The education department found that not only did the duo shared same names and even their fathers' names were identical. However, the names of their grandfathers and their date births were different.
After an inquiry, Block Education Officer Mangal Kachur lodged a complaint with Kadim Jalna Police Station, which booked both the cheats. Sources said that Ramesh Kelkar shared his salary with his accomplice and the duo deceived the education department for two decades.
Kelkar had been posted in different schools and took voluntary retirement from a school in Ambad, sources said.
It was only when a dispute arose between Kelkar and his accomplice over sharing pension, that someone got wind of the cheating and lodged a complaint with the education department and exposed the matter.
Initially, the education department did not entertain the complaint but after repeated attempts took cognisance.