Complaint against seven employees of ICFRE–IWST for securing govt. jobs through forgery and impersonation

A complaint has been filed against seven employees of the Institute of Wood Science and Technology (IWST) of the Indian Council of Forestry Research and Education (ICFRE), who allegedly secured government jobs through impersonation and use of forged documents without personally appearing for the recruitment examinations.

They were six multi-tasking staff and a forest guard.

Director of the IWST Shakti Singh Chauhan, in his complaint, named seven employees identified as Dinesh- multi-tasking staff (MTS), (recruitment year 2019, exam held on December 10, 2018); Sudhir- MTS, (recruitment year 2022, exam held on April 24, 2022); Prince- MTS, (recruitment year 2022, exam held on April 24, 2022); Sonu- MTS, (recruitment year 2022, exam held on April 24, 2022); Parveen- MTS, (recruitment year 2022, exam held on April 24, 2022); Rajkumar- MTS, (recruitment year 2022, exam held on April 24, 2022), and Sunil Kumar Yadav- forest guard, (recruitment year 2023, exam held on January 22, 2023), seeking legal action against them.

The probe was initiated following a directive issued by the ICFRE Directorate on August 7, 2025 to all ICFRE institutions instructing to conduct a comprehensive review of recruitment-related documents.

During internal scrutiny at the IWST, discrepancies were noticed between the handwriting, signatures, attendance sheets, OMR answer sheets, admit cards and service records of the accused employees. As doubts intensified, the documents were forwarded to the State Forensic Science Laboratory (SFSL), Bengaluru, for expert examination.

The FSL report, dated December 10, 2025, conclusively established that the handwriting and signatures on the examination records did not match with those of the appointed employees, confirming that different individuals had appeared for the recruitment examinations.

The findings indicated that the accused employees allegedly used impersonators to clear competitive examinations and fraudulently secure government employment, amounting to serious criminal conspiracy, forgery, and violation of public recruitment norms.

Based on the forensic evidence, a criminal complaint has been lodged against the seven accused and unknown accomplices, seeking registration of cases and further investigation.

The case is being viewed as a major recruitment scam within a central government institution, with authorities indicating that further arrests and disclosures may follow as the probe progresses.

In August last year, the Sadashivanagar police arrested four men from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh for securing jobs through impersonation. The accused Rupesh Kumar, 27, Nitish Kumar, 23, Ansh Raj, 24, and Gulkan Baghel, 19, allegedly paid intermediaries around ₹30,000 each to arrange proxies to write the exam.