Agood economy is known by the jobs it creates. And when jobs are in plenty, the real challenge is passed on to the employers in terms of identifying suitable candidate for a said job. One finds most employers in search of good candidates with affable character and attitude.

To meet these demands, many companies are now hiring independent verification agencies, using cross-references or even recruit private detectives to verify the credentials, especially in cases of senior candidates. Others are also known to rely on their internal Human Resource departments to conduct a thorough background check with due diligence of a candidate before bringing him/her on board.

The responsibility, however, does not rest solely on the companies. It is equally important for the candidates to be vigilant and careful while applying for a job and making declarations at the time of joining. These issues cannot be taken casually. Suppression of material facts, not disclosing true facts and misrepresentation can cost people their jobs. In a case titled ShristDhawanVs Shaw Bros AIR 1992 SC 1555, the Supreme Court of India had held that “fraud and collusion vitiate even the most solemn proceedings in any civilised system of jurisprudence. It is a concept descriptive of human capital”.

In Ram Chandra Singh VsSavitri Devi (2003) 8 SCC 319, the apex court had again ruled that “misrepresentation itself amounts to fraud”. It had further stated – “A fraudulent misrepresentation is called deceit and consists in leading a man into damage by wilfully or recklessly causing him to believe and act on falsehood. It is a fraud in law if a party makes representations which he knows to be false, and injury ensures therefrom although the motive from which the representations proceeded may not have been bad.”

This implies that withholding material information or making false representation amounts to moral turpitude and is a separate and distinct matter altogether than what is involved in the criminal case. Therefore, the declaration or information sought by the employer at the time of joining the organisation are very vital and the candidate is required to fill the requirements honestly.

In KendriyaVidyalayaSangathanVs Ram RatanYadav AIR 2003 SC 1709 and A.P. Public Service Commission VsKonetiVenkateswarulu (2005) 7 SCC 177, employment was obtained by suppressing such details. The court had rejected the pleas taken by the employee that the form was printed in English and he did not know the language, and therefore, could not understand what information was being sought. It was held that as the petitioner did not furnish the information correctly at the time of filling up the form, the subsequent withdrawal of the criminal case registered against him or the nature of offences were immaterial. “The requirement of filling Column 12 and 13 of the attestation form” was for the purpose of verification of the character andantecedents of the employee as on the date of filling in the attestation form. Withholding information and making false statement has a clear bearing on the character and antecedent of the employee in relation to his continuation in service, it was held.

In Delhi Admn.VsSushil Kumar (1996) 11 SCC 605, the petitioner was discharged/acquitted of the criminal offences, but the same had nothing to do with the question of filling up the correct factual information as sought by the employer. It was held that what would be relevant is the conduct or character of the candidate to be appointed to a service and not the actual result thereof. If the actual result happened to be in a particular way, the law will take care of the consequences, the court had ruled. The consideration relevant to the case is of the antecedents of the candidate.

In R. RadhakrishnanVs DG of Police (2008) 1 SCC 660, the SC had again held that furnishing wrong information while seeking appointment makes a candidate unsuitable for appointment and liable for removal/termination in case wrong information is furnished even though it had been specifically sought by the appointing authority.

In a recent judgement — Devendra Kumar Vs State of Uttaranchal (2013) 9 SCC 363 — an advertisement was published in September 2001 inviting application from candidates eligible for 250 posts of constables in Uttaranchal. While joining the training, the appellant was asked to submit an affidavit and clauses 4 and 7 of the pro forma affidavit read as under:

“4. That no cognizable or non-cognizable criminal case or proceeding has been registered against me to my knowledge and neither have I been fined by the police in any such case and neither is any (police investigation) pending against me.”

“7. That the details of such criminal cases, which were instituted against me in the court and in which I was punished /convicted / discharged, are as given below. If such information is nil, then the word “NIL”, should be entered”.

While hearing the plea, the SC had held that a reading of both the clauses of the said affidavit makes it clear that both have to be read in isolation. Clause 4 deals with a situation where a case has been registered, an investigation is conducted and the police have filed a final report but the person concerned must have knowledge of the pendency of such an FIR/criminal complaint. Clause 7, on the other hand, requires that in case a person has faced criminal prosecution, he has to furnish the information about the result of that trial as to whether the person has been punished, convicted or acquitted/discharged. Accordingly, the Court rejected the contention of the appellant that the clauses have to be read together and such information was required to be furnished only if the person faced trial and not otherwise.

In this case thus, when the authorities in pursuance to the process of character verification found out that the appellant / candidate was in fact involved in a criminal case, their contention to terminate his services was held to be proper.

Thus the candidate was removed despite having completed his training satisfactorily. The argument by the candidate that a final closure report was filed by the police in the case against him, which had been duly accepted by the Magistrate, was of no relevance as far as the suppression of his involvement in the criminal case was concerned. The Court held that the pendency of a criminal case/proceeding “is different from suppressing the information of such pendency”

The case pending against a person might not involve moral turpitude but suppressing of this information itself amounts to moral turpitude. It is a well settled proposition of law that where an applicant gets an office by misrepresenting the facts or by playing fraud upon the competent authority, such an order cannot be sustained in the eye ofthe law. “Fraud avoids all judicial acts, ecclesiastical or temporal,”it was ruled in Vide S.P. Chengalvaraya Naidu Vsjagannath AIR 1994 SC 853.

Across the country, cases of candidates proving fake curriculum vitae with false credentials, fictitious former employer(s), exaggerated claims, reference to unknown, unverifiable awards, wrong academic records etc, have become common, thus leading to cases of job-frauds and eventually job termination.

A survey carried out by recruitment consultancy First Advantage showed that the rate of faking has increased to 9.9% in 2012 from 8.1% in 2011, with Mumbai, Bangalore and Chennai leading the pack. Chennai registered 7.57 % discrepancies between October and December 2012, which means 76 of every 1,000 resumes had a bogus element in it (source: The Times of India February 17, 2013). Not only are the candidates, even the involvement of officials and brokers in creation of false education certificates is a matter of serious concern. The Punjab School Education Board had also detected around one dozen cases, where fake certificates were submitted to the board for verification (Source: The Hindustan Times March 24, 2013).,

It is time for candidates to realise that suppression of important facts, misrepresentation, creating and fabricating documents/certificates and obtaining jobs on these basis these are serious crimes which not only lead to termination of service but may even land up candidates in jail. This way, the candidates not only ruin their present but also their future. As has been rightly held by the Supreme Court (United India Insurance Co. Ltd VsRajendra Singh (2000) 3 SCC 581) – “fraud and justice never dwell together and it is a pristine maxim which has not lost temper over all these centuries”.