Birth, domicile certificates of 25 of 40 applicants under scanner | All issued this month by Ludhiana admn

Students during a drill at Sainik School, Kapurthala. Tribune file photo

Rachna Khaira

Tribune News Service

Kapurthala, February 27

In a development suggesting a possible admission scam, the local Sainik School authorities have put on hold the admission of around 25 of 40 applicants seeking admission to Class VI.Highly placed sources said the admission process was halted after the officials got suspicious over the birth certificates and domicile of these students.“Though all of them hailed from states like Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, they were all found carrying domicile and birth certificates issued in February this year by the Ludhiana district administration. Most of them had taken training from two academies based in Hanumangarh and Agra,” a source said.He said many were even found overage by up to five years. The medical board set up by the school has also raised questions over their age and sought a probe.During an interview, an applicant admitted that he had been trying to get admission in the school for the last three years. “Another boy submitted an Aadhaar card and a birth certificate that showed different dates of birth. While his Aadhaar card showed his year of birth as 2003, the birth certificate issued by the Ludhiana MC mentioned it as 2007,” said a board member. Many applicants failed to answer satisfactorily when asked about the directions of their address mentioned in their domicile. Some could not even tell the name of the area situated next to their “residence”.As per rules of any Sainik School, around 67 per cent of the seats should be reserved for candidates hailing from the state where the school is located. The quota goes over 70 per cent with students coming from the SC/ST category as well.Investigation by The Tribune revealed that even this rule had been violated for the past three years that has created an imbalance in the state quota.Some officials, on the condition of anonymity, claimed that when they tried to stop the practice last year, they received threats from some UP-based applicants’ kin.School Principal Group Captain Shakti Sharma said they had decided to take up the matter with the Kapurthala district administration to seek a check on the authenticity of the birth and domicile certificates.

Anomalies that give rise to suspicion

• The domicile and birth certificates of all 25 applicants under scanner were issued in February this year by the Ludhiana administration
• Most have taken training from two academies
• Many were even found overage by up to five years
• The applicants failed to answer when asked about the directions to their address mentioned in their domicile
• Some couldn’t even tell the name of the area situated next to their “residence”

Financial crisis

• In the absence of regular grant from the state or the Union Government, the Sainik School has no money to pay salaries and pension to its staff. School principal Group Captain Shakti Sharma said the institution was reeling under debt of around Rs 2 crore as it had not received any grant since 2011. “After much persuasion, I managed to get a grant of Rs 1 crore from the state last year. But around Rs 50 lakh was paid to clear debt and the remaining was spent on maintenance,” Shakti said, adding that the school had been managing its affairs with the fee from students, but this time, they won’t be able to pay salaries and pension amounting to Rs 40 lakh to its 200 present and former employees.