Zhemgang District Court sentenced four men to prison term ranging from one to one and a half years for illegal census registration. The former Gups of Shingkhar, Taula and Phuntsho, Shingkhar’s former Chimi, Yonten and a former BDBL staff of Zhemgang, Norden Drukpa have been convicted for forgery.
The verdict was passed almost after five years since the case was first reported to the Dzongkhag Authority.
Norden Drukpa had brought two boys from across the border from an orphanage school in early 1990s. He had them registered in the census record of a household in Wamling Village under Shingkhar Gewog in 2010.
Since then the boys have grown up and are working as a civil servant and a businessman.
The verdict states the census registrations of the two should be removed from the parent household’s census or that they should be handed over to their concerned family members.
The case had emerged after discovery of two additional members in the census record of a household in Wamling. They had come to know when some differences surfaced while paying their life insurance fees.
An investigation had revealed that the registration was done in a deceptive manner, without completing proper procedures of census registration.
The four convicted can pay compensation in lieu of prison terms, states the verdict.
