Mumbai: Sessions Court Grants Bail To 41-Year-Old Woman Who Secured BMC Sweeper Job With Fake Widow Certificate

Mumbai: The sessions court last week granted bail to 41-year-old Geeta Solanki, who was booked by the Bhandup police for obtaining a BMC job as a sweeper by submitting a fake certificate, showing herself as widow of a deceased sweeper. The court, while granting the bail, asked the BMC to take action against the officials who failed to verify the records before giving her the job.

About The Case

As per the case, an unmarried employee Jagdish Solanki worked as a BMC sweeper since 1990 and died in 2008. He had not nominated a legal heir in his service record. After his death, Geeta submitted a job request on compassionate grounds with a forged certificate as his widow, even though she was not his kin.

She was given the job on November 5, 2012. In her defence, she claimed she was falsely implicated, and that there was a delay of 12 years in taking action. Her lawyer, Sunil Pandey, submitted that she did not forge any documentary evidence. The investigation agency failed to take action against the BMC employees who approved the document, the defence argued.

The prosecution objected to the bail plea, claiming that the applicant, in collusion with BMC employees, got the job without following due process of law. While granting bail to the applicant, the court directed to forward the copy of the order to the BMC office to take appropriate action against the officials concerned as only she was prosecuted and not those who acted in collusion.