Patiala, Sept. 19 -- Over the past two years, 31 serving government officials, including an IAS (allied), IRS, agriculture development officer and excise inspector, have been reportedly caught using falsified Schedule Caste (SC) certificates in Punjab.

As per the documents accessed by HT, the department of social justice & minorities, Punjab, after holding an inquiry by a state-level scrutiny committee, declared that 31 officers had used fake SC certificates to get jobs.

The scrutiny committee in its report last week stated that an excise inspector belonged to the Nishad caste, which was not in the list of Scheduled Castes issued by the Government of India. The said candidate, however, got his certificate of belonging to the Balmiki cas...