IRS officer booked for forging certificates to clear UPSC exam

PATNA: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has filed a case against Indian Revenue Service officer, Navneet Kumar, for allegedly using a fake date of birth and educational certificates to qualify the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) examination in 2017, police said on Friday.

During the verification of the accused’s documents, it was found that Kumar’s real name is Rajesh Kumar Sharma who was no longer falling into the age limit criteria of the UPSC exam. Thus, he changed his identity and obtained a certificate in the name of Navneet Kumar keeping father name and residential address as the same.

As per the fake certificate, Navneet was born on June 15, 1980, and had passed high school in 1996 and intermediate and graduation in 2003 and 2008 respectively. However, Sharma had actually passed class 10 in 1991 and class 12 in 1993 from CBSE Board in Bettiah, the probe agency said.

It was also revealed that Kumar has not submitted any date of birth certificate and intermediate examination certificate passed by him in 2003 to the department so far. The agency said that the examination board Bihar Vidyalaya Pariksha Samiti did not co-operate in providing the required details of Navneet.

“lt is prima facie criminal act of use of forged documents as genuine, change of identity for cheating in conspiracy with unknown public servants who might have helped in the act getting government job by assuming a new identity to overcome restraint of being overage and against unknown private persons,” the probe agency said.