M A I N   N E W S

Fake degree racket in MDU
From Jatinder Sharma

ROHTAK, Feb 18 — The issuance of fake degrees and manipulation of examination results in Maharshi Dayanand University have eroded the credibility of the university.

The practice has allegedly been going on for some time with impunity. The fake degrees issued by the university, it is said, are being legalised by tampering with the original examination records.

The scandal came to light when a candidate Ms Nirmala Devi (roll number 111733, BA-II, April 1995, applied for the issuance of a duplicate detailed marks card (DMC). On checking the records, it was found that the result sheet had been torn and new forged pages had been inserted.

On verifying the records for the year 1995 with the registration branch and the result gazette, it was found that Ajit Singh son of Kartar Singh, was the beneficiary. He was shown as having passed the examination by securing 464 marks out of 800 while in the registration records the candidate had appeared in BA-II compartment paper held in April 1996 under roll number 312791.

The Registrar, Mr Ashok Khemka, on learning about the scandal ordered the Superintendent (certificate section) to inquire into the matter. To the surprise of the university authorities, more such cases were detected by the Superintendent concerned.

It was found that the result sheets of the B.Ed (CC) June 1996, examination had also been tampered with. On one such sheet, the entire particulars of a candidate had been changed.

The result of candidate bearing roll number 1112896 of B.Ed June 1996, was “declared debarred “ +2 in the main result gazette. But in the result sheet he was shown as having secured 461 out of 900 marks and placed in second division. The candidate obtained the duplicate DMC (Sr No 4191 on July 13, 1999).

Interestingly, this DMC was received by an employee of the University Press, who was on binding duty in the certificate section at that time. The duplicate degree sent to the candidate by registered post was also received by the said employees, as per the university records.

The Registrar said on a closer perusal of the candidate’s application for the duplicate DMC, it was found that the candidate had been identified by the university employee who has stated that he knew and said the candidate had signed in his presence.

The Superintendent (certificate section) has checked the B.Ed result sheet registers of 1995 and 1996 and detected 10 cases where the records had been illegally tampered with.

“This is only a tip of the iceberg of the voluminous scandal going on in this university”, the Registrar said adding a detailed scrutiny of all result sheet registers was urgently required.

There are other professional examinations being conducted by the university and it is possible that similar scandals are being perpetuated by certain university insiders on a large scale. He has advised the registration of an FIR and handing over the case to the state Vigilance bureau.

The Vice Chancellor has constituted a three-member committee to inquire into the scandal and sealing off the relevant records. But the teaching and non-teaching employees’ unions have demanded a judicial probe into the scandal.