PATNA, May 25 -- The controversy-ridden appointment of assistant professors in Bihar got murkier last week as Bihar State University Service Commission (BSUSC) cancelled recommendation for appointment of Manoj Kumar, a candidate appointed as Assistant Professor in Sociology, whose teaching experience certificate was found to be forged by the BN Mandal University, Madhepura. The candidate who was selected under Other Backward Classes (OBC) category could also be booked for forgery as the commission has recommended filing an FIR against him. BSUSC chairman Girish Choudhary, when contacted by HT, said, "So far, recommendation of 6-7 candidates have been cancelled by the BSUSC after the concerned universities detected the anomalies in credentials of the candidates and brought it to our notice. I have also asked the universities to lodge an FIR against such candidates and more candidates will lose their jobs if their documents are found forged," said Choudhary. Earlier, Patna University registrar had written to director, higher education, NK Aggarwal, that the recommendation of the candidate Vivek Kumar, made on serial No. 1 in the department of geography, was under cloud, as the experience letter supplied by him was declared fake by the Gorakhpur University registrar Deen Dayan Upadhyay. The candidate was stopped from discharging his responsibility. Several other universities reported detection of forged documents, especially experience certificates, during verification ahead of joining. Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar University (Muzaffarpur) had also sought guidelines for verification of experience certificates after the recommendation had been made, as many cases were under scanner and could take time. However, experts said the scale of irregularities detected in the appointment process is distressing, as BSUSC could not escape the responsibility of allowing "rigging" on such a large scale despite screening at its own level. "This investigation could have been ensured at least after shortlisting to save the government from embarrassment. The commission was not supposed to do just paper work, issue advertisement and publish results without accountability. All commissions have a robust mechanism for verification of documents. The government must act to come clean on this," said former financial advisor to the UGC SK Singh. BBA Bihar University VC Dinesh Chandra Rai said he had not got any reply from BSUSC on his letter seeking clear guidelines. "Had the commission gone in for verification before recommending names for appointment, things would have been easier. We have allowed the joining of some candidates after taking an affidavit from them, but we don't pay them despite work. Payment will be made only after verification of their documents. This is also unethical, but we have no option," he added. Rai said that joining of candidates whose documents looked doubtful has been withheld. A senior official of the higher education department expressed surprise and said that a couple of mistakes could be an exception and treated as human error, but if it develops a pattern it certainly raises questions and calls for thorough review. "If a candidate is removed after serving based on forged documents for months and years, that becomes more serious," he admitted. A senior advocate of the Patna High Court, who did not want to be quoted as he is the counsel in some cases challenging the recruitment process, said the primary duty of any constitutional commission is to conduct the appointment process in a fair, transparent and lawful manner, which prima facie seems to not have happened due to shoddy scrutiny....