Jharkhand: 33 birth certificates cancelled over alleged forgery of hospital records
Daltonganj: As many as 33 birth certificates have been cancelled by the registrar of births and deaths at Medinirai Medical College and Hospital (MMCH), Daltonganj, after they were allegedly issued using forged admission and discharge documents showing mothers and newborns as patients in the hospital’s labour room.
As per the news reports, the certificates were digitally issued by a Pragya Kendra in Meral block of Garhwa district and pertained to different dates between 2006 and 2026, sources said. The records, however, did not include entries for 2006-07, 2015 and 2018. Of the 33 applicants, 25 were from Garhwa district and eight from Palamu.
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Speaking to TOI, MMCH deputy superintendent Dr Vijay Kumar Singh, who is also the registrar of births and deaths, said, “Thirty-three birth certificates issued digitally by a particular Pragya Kendra in Meral block, using forged admit and discharge tickets of MMCH, Daltonganj, have been cancelled.”
According to Singh, a sub-divisional magistrate in Garhwa first noticed the suspicious issuance of the certificates and alerted Meral Police. The police subsequently began an inquiry and issued a notice to the MMCH registrar.
The hospital received the notice from Meral police on August 29 and submitted a detailed report on September 2, Singh said. He added that the hospital found no records of admission, delivery or discharge of any of the 33 patients mentioned in the certificates.
The hospital has also alleged that its login credentials were misused and that the registrar’s digital signature was fraudulently used by two outsourced computer operators.
One outsourced computer operator was served a show-cause notice in connection with the alleged irregularities. During the preliminary inquiry, the operator denied misusing the credentials and blamed another person who had allegedly been assisting with the work.
The operator reportedly claimed that the person had been verbally assigned to assist with the work because of a backlog. Hospital sources, however, said there was no written record documenting such an assignment.
Daltonganj Town police were informed on Sept 5. Meral and Daltonganj Town police are conducting separate probes. MMCH teams are scrutinising recent tickets used for issuing digital birth and death certificates, reports TOI.
