The candidates were from all over the country including Bihar, West Bengal, Gujarat and Maharashtra had forged certificates to avail of the free-travel pass given to scheduled caste and scheduled tribe candidates, to travel to the examinaation centre. ``We have terminated their candidature and we are intimating the various state governments as well as police stations to charge these candidates for fraud,'' said Adesh Sharma, chairpersonof the RRB's Mumbai division.

Last week, RRB officials smelt a rat when they discovered a 10 per cent jump in the SC/ST candidature. It had jumped to 50 per cent from 40 per cent last year.

Forms in the general category and SC/ST category were scanned on computer for similarities in name, date of birth and father's names. The computerthrew up a list of 3,000 candidates, who had applied for the examination in the general category, but had applied to travel to the examination centres free of cost on documents that were forged.

According to Sharma, these two posts fall in the very popular category since they require only a graduation degree. Over 3 lakh candidates have already applied for a total of 570 posts, 543 posts of assistant station master and 40 posts of reservation clerks. The RRB has now begun manual checking of SC/ST candidates to weed out more cases of fraud as Sharma adds, ``If they change their names to avail of the free travel, we have no way of knowing.''

The railways are spending Rs 5 crore for the free-travel facility to SC/ST candidates in this exam alone. In the light of this fraud, the RRB has written to the railway board to replace the system of free passes with one of reimbursement of travel expenses.

However, the June 6 exams would be held on schedule, Sharma said. The board has warned applicants to desist fromindulging in such malpractices. If such cases were detected at any stage of selection or during service, the candidates would be liable to be dismissed from service even if they were already appointed.

The RRB is now exploring legal alternatives to proceed against the 3000 applicants, Sharma said.