Agartala, Nov. 2: The Tripura government has identified 68 people, including a judge, an engineer and senior officials in the state government, who have fake Scheduled Caste certificates.

Appropriate legal action will be taken against them soon, official sources said today. The errant officials face termination of service, withdrawal of pension benefits and criminal proceedings.

In December 2004, while passing judgment on a public interest litigation, the Supreme Court had ordered all states to identify persons having fake Scheduled Cas-te/Scheduled Tribe certificates and take action against them.

On the basis of that directive, the government for-med a three-member scrutiny committee headed by secretary of Scheduled Tribes welfare department, Sailen K. Das.

The vigilance department submitted a detailed report to the state-level committee, identifying 68 of 77 accused as holders of fake ST certificates.

The state-level committee submitted its report to the government recently, identifying the 68 people who had fake ST certificates. They include district and sessions judge Joydipta Debbarma, deputy secretary Binapani Debbarma, under secretary Haridas Debbarma, ONGC deputy manager (Tripura projects) Debdas Debbarma, subdivisional officer (telephones) Haripada Debbarma, executive engineer (power deparment) Gokarna Chhetri, Khadi Commission deputy director Dipali Barua, supervisor of police wireless Pravatosh Talukdar, retired executive engineer Jibon Lal Debbarma, Indian Airlines flight operator Shibdas Debbarma and an MBBS student Madhumita Debbarma.