Team Herald
MARGAO: With the Shadow Council for Margao (SCM) revealing another case of duplicate birth registration, speculation is rife about the possibility of a major fake birth registration scam, involving people within the Margao Municipal Council.
At a press briefing, the Shadow Council said they had received information that a native of Halliyal, Karnataka, had allegedly fraudulently registered his birth with the Margao municipality, with his place of birth as Margao. According to SCM, the person was actually born on December 11, 1996, in Halliyal Karnataka, and accordingly, his birth was registered in his native place.
Upon receiving information about the alleged fraud, an application was filed under RTI on January 25, seeking details and documents produced for the registration of his birth.
The registration was of one Imtiyaz Anwar Sayed, born on December 11, 1996, Reg No B/4855/2014 dated November 11, 2014.
After much follow-up, the council issued a copy of the court order produced by the applicant. However, the application for the non-availability certificate and other papers produced along with the application was not issued, citing the reason as ‘not traceable’.
“Thereafter, we were compelled to file an application before the first appellate authority on March 1, hoping that we would get the information. Unfortunately, we have not received the details,” said Savio Lopes of SCM.
Apart from the application of the individual, an application for details of all the late registrations done by the council from 2005 to 2015 had also been submitted on January 25, and a subsequent appeal before the first appellate authority on March 1, but no information was forthcoming in this case too
“We also have information about a verification sought by the Passport Authority with regards to an application of a passport of yet another individual, whose birth records were found suspicious. The Passport Authority was not given any reply in this regard too. These types of fake or bogus registrations are done by migrants/non-Goans, to avail benefits of government schemes, passports and even government jobs,” alleged Coutinho.
He added, “It is therefore demanded that a high-level inquiry be conducted to screen out all the bogus birth registrations and appropriate be taken action against those responsible.”
