SC awards pension to Mum engineer who forged ST cert

SC awards pension to Mum engineer who forged ST cert

Dhananjay.Mahapatra@timesofindia.com 05.09.2026

New Delhi: Supreme Court has rewarded a wrongdoer, a man who got appointed as a junior civil engineer in Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai by producing a forged ST certificate, and subsequently, stalled scrutiny of his eligibility for quota for more than a decade — by allowing him to superanuate in peace with retirement benefits. 

Shirish P Patil got a certificate in 1984 by identifying himself as belonging to the ‘Tokre Koli’ ST community. Based on the certificate, he was appointed a junior civil engineer in MCGM in 1994. He misplaced original ST certificate, but managed to secure a fresh one in Oct 2000. Following scrutiny of the caste certificate, the Police Vigilance Cell traced Patil’s family history and found that his ancestors had been recorded as ‘Koli’, ‘Hindu Koli’ and ‘Hindu Suryawanshi Koli’, none of which belonged to ST category. 

In July 2009, MCGM issued a show cause notice. He successfully dodged proceedings before the Scrutiny Committee until Jan 2020, when the panel rejected his plea that his lawyer and elderly family members were not available, and invalidated the ST certificate. Bombay HC dismissed his appeal. SC, however, stayed Patil’s dismissal through an interim order on Nov 18, 2021. As a result, he continued to serve until June 30, 2025, when he retired after being employed with MCGM for more than three decades based on a forged ST certificate. The SC bench on Thursday upheld the cancellation of Patil’s ST certificate and Bombay HC order. However, it took a lenient view given his undertaking that he or any of his family members “shall (not) be entitled to claim any future benefit on the basis of the invalidated ST certificate”.