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Appointment Secured by Forged TET Certificate , No Enquiry Needed:
The has delivered a significant ruling on the consequences of a public appointment founded on forged educational credentials. A single-judge bench of Justice Manju Rani Chauhan held that where the for appointment is to be forged, the appointment is void from its inception. In such cases, terminating the services does not require a under the ; a and adherence to the broad are sufficient.
The judgment, dated , was delivered on a batch of five , including that of Vivek Kumar and four others, who were appointed as Assistant Teachers in upper-primary sections of basic schools in Etawah district after qualifying the Uttar Pradesh Teachers Eligibility Test (TET) 2013.
The Background: From Appointment to Allegation of
The petitioners had cleared the TET-2013 examination and were appointed as Assistant Teachers. After joining, their educational documents were verified by the concerned Boards and found genuine. They continued to serve and were paid salary.
However, a government order dated , directed an inquiry into appointments made after 2010 across the state. A three-member district-level committee was formed to verify the TET-2013 credentials. The committee checked the roll numbers mentioned in the petitioners' certificates against online records of the . For each petitioner—Vivek Kumar (roll no. 0521303622), Ajay Pratap Singh (5810201961), Prem Lata (0510802517), Anupam Yadav (5103027776), and Ravindra Singh (05103027187)—no matching entry was found.
Based on this report, the District Basic Education Officer, Etawah, issued show-cause notices to the petitioners, alleging that their certificates were forged. The petitioners submitted detailed replies asserting the genuineness of their certificates. However, their salary was stopped in , and ultimately, on , their services were terminated.
The Core Legal Questions
The petitioners challenged the termination on multiple grounds. They argued that no or misrepresentation was alleged against them; their certificates had been earlier verified by the same authority on , and found genuine. They contended that the termination was passed without a , violating . One petitioner, Anupam Yadav, had passed away during the pendency of the writ.
The respondents, represented by the State of Uttar Pradesh, argued that the online records of the contained no corresponding result for any of the petitioners. They submitted that the certificates were , and that the cannot be used to perpetuate an appointment built on . Since the very basis of appointment was fraudulent, no regular enquiry was required.
Court's Legal Analysis: Vitiates Everything
Justice Chauhan undertook a detailed analysis of the legal position. The court relied on a long line of and High Court precedents, including R. Vishwanatha Pillai v. State of Kerala (2004) 2 SCC 105, where the Apex Court held that an appointment obtained by practising is void and from its inception, and that even long continuance in service cannot confer any .
The court also referred to District Basic Education Officer v. Smt. Punita Singh (2024), where a Division Bench of the held that when the foundational documents are conclusively found forged, a and broad natural justice suffice; a regular enquiry under the 1999 Rules is not indispensable.
The court distinguished between two scenarios: where is conclusively established, no regular enquiry is needed; but where the material merely discloses a discrepancy requiring factual verification, a meaningful determination must be undertaken. In the present case, the court found that the petitioners were given specific opportunities to explain the discrepancy, and the certificates were verified and found non-genuine.
Key Observations
The judgment contains several critical observations:
"Where the securing public employment is or fraudulently procured, the appointment is rendered and cannot be sanctified by length of service."
"The 1999 Rules regulate the disciplinary consequences of misconduct committed by a person holding a legally valid appointment; they cannot be invoked to confer procedural sanctity upon an appointment which, having been procured through established or forged credentials, was void from its inception."
"Fraudulent entry cannot, by efflux of time, metamorphose into a lawful appointment; nor can years of service transmute a into a right."
"Once the is conclusively established, neither longevity of service, nor the plea of satisfactory discharge of duties, nor considerations of sympathy or equity can operate to sustain an appointment which was ."
Final Decision: Writs Dismissed
The court found that the petitioners had been afforded a to substantiate the genuineness of their certificates but had failed to displace the competent authority's verification. The impugned termination order dated , was found to suffer from no infirmity warranting interference under Article 226 of the Constitution. Accordingly, all five were dismissed.
The ruling reinforces the principle that fraudulent entry into public employment cannot be legitimised by the mere passage of time. It also clarifies the procedural requirements for terminating such appointments, providing that a and an opportunity to be heard are sufficient where the stands objectively established.
