Fraudsters seek jobs on fake MSU degrees

In the last two years, M S University (MSU) has come across 72 fake mark sheets and degree certificates, which were submitted to it for verification.

This has come to light following arrest of a Mumbai-based youngster, who was nabbed by the police with a fake degree and mark sheets of the university last week. The youngster – Ketan Valunj – was one such individual, who had personally approached the university officials to get a degree certificate and was nabbed when he produced fake mark sheets and other documents.

Unlike him, most documents that university receives for verification are routed through private and government agencies, making it difficult for the university to book the culprits.Since April 2012, the university has started maintaining a verification register, which has details of the agencies, both private and governments, through which documents are routed for verification.

According to university officials, the university receives on an average of 250 applications a month for verification. “Since, we have started maintaining the verification register, a total of 72 such cases, where mark sheets or certificates were found to be fake, have surfaced,” said a top official of the university.

“In most of these 72 cases, the candidates had submitted fake mark sheets or certificates while applying for a job. These mark sheets or certificates were sent to us for verification by private agencies based in Delhi and Mumbai, who handle the job of verification on behalf of their corporate clients,” said the official.

At times, embassies also contact the university for telephonic verifications when they want an urgent verification of any candidate seeking immigration.

“A couple of months ago, Canadian embassy had contacted us to check genuineness of documents submitted by a youth for immigration purpose. After we informed the Canadian embassy that the documents submitted by the youth were fake and we had no records of such a student having studied at our university, the youth was stopped from flying to Canada,” said the official.

While the university carries out verification process based on requests made by employers, those seeking immigration to foreign countries and admission in foreign universities, it also does verification for foreign students from West Asia who study at the university.

“Governments in West Asia insist that those students who study here have to get their certificates verified in order to return back,” said the official.

Source: indiatimes