The Parliamentary Committee on the Welfare of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes recommended the Centre to introduce a Bill to make the use of false caste certificate a punishable offence and to fix a time limit for verification of caste certificate.

The committee submitted its report — Implementation of reservation policy under the ministries and different departments related to the verification of caste certificate.

The committee in its report said it had taken suo motu cognizance of the matter after receiving representations and complaints about different public sector undertakings withholding retiral benefits of employees after retirement for delay in submitting caste certificates.

The report said that if a system, of a time bound verification process once a person is employed, is set in place, no person would be able to gain employment by using fake certificates. “There must be limitation period for verification of caste certificate of SCs and STs as verification at the fag end of the service or post- retirement amounts to mental and financial agony in the mind of the person who has served for more than 30 to 40 years in government service, “ the report said.

The committee said that during the hearings, it came across cases where gratuity or pension were withheld of retired employees for delay or non-submission of the caste certificates.

“The Committee in their observation had remarked that state level scrutiny committees usually cause inadvertent delay in processing the cases causing extreme mental harassment and financial difficulties to the retired employees and therefor had recommended that the Ministry/DoPT (department of personnel and training) should bring out clear guidelines for process of the verification of caste certificate which should be adhered to by all the state governments/state level scrutiny committees,” the report said.

The Committee reiterated in its report that the Department of Pension and Pensioners’ Welfare guidelines do not provide for withholding of the retirement benefits under any other circumstances, including on account of pending verification of caste status of the employee.