The Darjeeling district magistrate has sent a letter to the West Bengal School Education Department’s principal secretary, stating that Annapurna Gurung, the daughter of fugitive Gorkha Jan Mukti Morcha leader, Bimal Gurung, impersonated one Nanda Gurung and continued her studies after she flunked her ICSE exams in the year 2004.
In the letter dated 21 June, which has also been forwarded to different officials, including the Council for the Indian School Certificate Examination chief executive and secretary in Delhi, the DM says that Annapurna had acquired the ICSE pass certificate of Nanda Gurung, who cleared the exams from a school here in Darjeeling.
“The daughter of Bimal Gurung got admitted in class II at Mt Hermon School and appeared in the ICSE exams in the year 2004, but failed to qualify,” the letter says.
It further says that she acquired the ICSE pass certificate of Nanda Gurung of the then Green Lawns School in Darjeeling and took admission in Himali Boarding School (HBS) in Kurseong in class XI, while she impersonated herself as Nanda.
The DM further says that Nanda Gurung is the daughter of Purna Bahadur Gurung of Bhairhawa in Rupandehi district in Nepal. The DM has also recommended action against the two schools for “entertaining this forgery.”
With the Green Lawns School closed some years back, no one could be contacted for comment.
HBS proprietor Robindra Subba, however, said, “According to the norms of the Council For the Indian School Certificate Examinations (CISCE), one has to forward only the registration number for admitting a child into the ISC. A candidate for the ICSE registered in class 10 at that time has no photograph or the name of the parent on the certificate. As far as we were concerned, a child who had passed the ICSE was applying to continue her studies in the same board. There is no regulation mandating we ask for birth certificates, blood group etc. All we need to forward is the registration number.”
“Since ICSE and ISC are the same board, we have to send only these documents to the Council in Delhi, which will verify all that as they have previous records,” he added.
Among others, the District Magistrate has sent a copy of the report to the secretary of the Bar Association at the Calcutta High Court, as the DM says that Annapurna now has a Bar licence that she got through the fake ICSE certificate.