Seventeen years, four promotions, a borrowed identity: the Birsa block medical officer in Balaghat booked over a fake MBBS degree, still absconding

Madhya Pradesh hires doctors for its tribal blocks on contract and promotes them into the regular service, and the block medical officer (BMO) is the senior clinician for tens of thousands of people. In Balaghat district's Birsa block, a tribal-majority area, the man who held that post until 2026 had, according to police, been working under another doctor's name and degree since 2009. The case surfaced in the same weeks that ETV Bharat and Amar Ujala were reporting the deaths of more than 30 Baiga children in the Birsa area, which put the block's health service under scrutiny.

According to Amar Ujala on 25 October 2026, the accused worked under the name Sunil Singh from 2009; police say his real name is Shivkumar Pandey, from Rewa district. The degree he submitted was from Awadhesh Pratap Singh University, Rewa, and the name, father's name, date of birth and degree details on his papers matched those of a genuine doctor posted in Dewas who had never met him. That doctor appeared three times before the inquiry committee to prove his own degree genuine. No record of permanent medical registration was found for the accused; only provisional registration papers had been submitted. He was appointed a contractual doctor in 2012, received four promotions, and became BMO of Birsa in 2023. Amar Ujala reported that a former chief medical and health officer had given him a clean chit in an earlier departmental inquiry. After a state-level committee's report, Birsa police registered an FIR on 10 October 2026 under Sections 318(4), 340(2) and 336(3) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita.

ETV Bharat reported on 19 October that online salary payments between March 2017 and 2026 came to about Rs 70 lakh, with payments from 2009 to 2016 still being checked, and that he had built a large house in Khutehi, Rewa, where officers did not find him. Amar Ujala and Lalluram (28 October) reported that his home district appeared variously as Morena, Rewa and Balaghat in records, that police had put up posters with his photograph and announced a reward of Rs 10,000, and that teams from 36 police stations were searching. He had not been arrested when the reports were published.

The alleged mechanism was identity substitution rather than a crudely printed fake. Everything checkable about 'Sunil Singh' belonged to a genuine graduate, so a search of the university or the register returned a real record. What was missing was a permanent registration in the applicant's own name, and both ETV Bharat and Lalluram ask whether anyone verified the original degree and the council registration when he was regularised and promoted.

For students, the lesson is that a degree is tied to a person, not a name, and lending or borrowing identity papers to obtain a post is prosecuted as forgery and cheating. For the public, verifying a doctor means matching the registration number to the photograph and signature on the council register, not just finding the name.