Business
Standard: Mumbai: Wednesday, 19 August 2015.
The Mumbai
University (MU) has received 136 fake degree cases in just four months of the
academic year 2015-16, surpassing the number of similar cases reported in the
last three years.
In its reply
to an RTI query, the Marks and Certificates Unit of Examination section of the
varsity stated that the number of such cases jumped to 136 in the first four
months of this (academic) year compared to 2012-13 (252 cases), 2013-14 (242
cases) and 2014-15 (274 cases).
The reply to
the query, filed by a Pune-based activist Vihar Durve, has also revealed that
number of such cases per month has gone up to 34 as against 21 in 2012-13.
These cases
of fake degrees were reported to MU by means of complaints filed with police,
correspondence, letters and various e-mails from different offices, courts,
police departments, other universities and citizens between 2012 and 2015 so
far.
All the cases
have been further reported to Bandra Kurla police station for further action,
stated the reply.
"This
rising trend of procuring fake degrees is adopted not only by politicians, but
also in the recruitment of lower grade appointments," Durve said.
He alleged
that despite "rampant" procurement of fake degrees and knowledge of
such incidents, neither ministers nor education officers have taken corrective
steps to check the menace.
Prominent
politicians who are under cloud over fake educational qualifications are Union
HRD minister Smriti Irani, Maharashtra education minister Vinod Tawde, his
cabinet colleague and water supply minister Babanrao Lonikar and former Delhi
Law minister Jitendra Tomar.
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