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The Punjab Vigilance Bureau has arrested five Education Department officials for committing irregularities and misappropriation in safeguarding official records relating to the recruitment of 9,998 posts in 2007. The fraud came to light following complaints that many candidates had submitted bogus documents, including fake experience certificates. The officials were arrested while the investigation is still underway.

The Directorate of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption (DVAC) has booked eight persons, including four former employees of the varsity and four private persons for criminal conspiracy, criminal breach of trust, cheating, forgery, and falsification of accounts. While perusing the details of registration and tuition fees of 16,580 students, the DVAC officials found that the serial number of one demand draft was used multiple times against several students.

A report from Calcutta High Court shows how the West Bengal Central School Service Commission (WBSSC) allegedly misused the Right to Information (RTI) Act to facilitate illegal recruitment. The chairman of the WBSSC had instructed the chairpersons of the five regional commissions to scan and store their signatures on the WBSSC’s application server. These were used as illegal digital signatures for over 500 fake recommendation letters, allegedly hand-delivered to undeserving candidates.

Four abandoned buildings have made a Gwalior primary school teacher a millionaire. His permanently closed private nursing and education colleges allegedly sold bogus degrees to hundreds of students each year, without running courses or giving them practical training in hospitals. An investigation showed Gwalior has become a hub for issuing nursing degrees in cheap private colleges affiliated to state universities and accredited by the Nursing Council.

The Central Bureau of Investigation filed a report against the former deputy director of the West Bengal school education directorate, officials of the School Service Commission and the Board of Secondary Education for criminal conspiracy, cheating, forgery for the purpose of cheating and using a forged document or electronic record as genuine. They extended undue advantage in appointing undeserving candidates to Group-D staff posts by violating departmental rules and using forged documents.

Media reports indicate that in various parts of the country officers claim they can obtain degrees from recognized universities for students without attending courses or taking exams. In response to this, the Human Resource Development (HRD) ministry has ordered University Grants Commission (UGC) to constitute a high-level committee to enquire into the allegations regarding the sale of fake degrees by certain universities.

Three men, including a Delhi University graduate, were arrested for allegedly running a pan-India fake degree racket under which they sold about 50,000 forged certificates of universities and school boards, police said today. The accused, during interrogation, revealed that they had sold at least 50,000 fake degrees and marksheets of various universities and school boards. In order to convince their clients, they had also set up fake websites of the universities and school boards on which the victims verified the authenticity of these documents. The websites were so convincing that victims could not tell the difference between genuine and fake, the senior police official said.

The Indian government is planning to digitise academic records as part of a drive against fake degrees and institutions at a time when prominent public figures are being challenged to prove that they are entitled to the degrees and qualifications they claim to have. The National Academic Depository, which will start functioning this year, will include authenticated academic records from 2016 onwards with the government ensuring that all institutions, including school boards, issue digitised certificates with digital signatures from this academic year.

In India, university fraud is a national sport, practiced at all levels. Beginning with the former prime minister up to the former Delhi justice minister who allegedly fakes his qualification in … law. The increase in fake qualifications is undoubtedly linked to the lack of universities in the country, with some of the harshest selection processes in the world. Leaving the country to study overseas is so expensive that counterfeit diplomas from international universities abound.