Over 1,000 fake certificates issued for govt jobs under sports quota, 2 arrested

Pune Police have arrested two Maharashtra Kurash Association office-bearers in a fake certificate racket. The probe suggests sports quota recruitment may have been manipulated on a wide scale.The case came to light after police received a complaint alleging that fake certificates were being issued in Kurash and other sports for candidates seeking jobs under the sports quota. (Representative Photo: Pixels)Pune Police have uncovered a racket involving more than 1,000 fake Kurash tournament certificates allegedly used by candidates seeking government jobs under the sports quota, and arrested two office-bearers of the Maharashtra Kurash Association, an official said on Tuesday.The two accused, the association's president and secretary, are alleged to have fabricated records of state-level competitions that were never held. Police have so far identified at least 60 people who used these documents to apply for government posts, though the number may rise as the investigation continues.The case came to light after police received a complaint alleging that fake certificates were being issued in Kurash and other sports for candidates seeking jobs under the sports quota."After receiving the complaint, we started verification. Documents obtained through an RTI application were also examined, and we found several discrepancies," the official said. Kurash is a form of upright jacket wrestling that originated in Central Asia. It is an internationally recognised sport and has been played in Maharashtra since 2012 under the Kurash Association of Maharashtra, police said.The probe found that competitions shown as having been held between 2016 and 2019 were conducted by organisations not affiliated with the Indian Kurash Association. Police also said the signatures on the certificates were allegedly scanned and affixed. According to investigators, the two accused obtained purported participation letters from district-level associations carrying dates from nine to 10 years ago to create records showing competitions had taken place between 2016 and 2022.Among the discrepancies flagged by police were certificates said to have been issued in 2016-17 that mentioned Dharashiv instead of Osmanabad, though the district was renamed only in 2023. In a similar instance, certificates from the erstwhile Aurangabad district mentioned Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar, the official said.Police also found certificates for the women's category carrying male names, while several certificates did not have serial numbers. The racket appears to have started after 2016, and more than 1,000 certificates may have been distributed, the official said.The accused are being questioned and police are gathering more evidence to establish the full extent of the racket. Police are also checking whether any personnel from the police department secured duplicate or fake certificates. So far, the investigation points to a wider fraud in sports quota applications built around fabricated Kurash competition records.- EndsPublished By: India Today Web Desk Published On: Sep 8, 2026 18:18 IST