The University of Madras has busted at least 117 ‘fake’ students who illegally tried to get degrees without enrolling for any course in distance education under it.
Owing to the spread of Covid-19 in the academic year 2020-21, the semester examinations were conducted online at the University of Madras like all other educational institutions. At that time, those who had arrear in distance education for the last 20 years, from 1980-81, were also given special permission to write the exams.
The scam came to light when some of the students who had written and passed the exam last December, have approached the university administration to issue their degree certificates. The shock awaited when the staff had checked the documents of certain individuals.
The scamsters uploaded the applications of these students to write the exams by faking course completion certificates. They paid the exam fees and were given serial numbers that followed the genuine candidates in each batch.
Following this, the UNOM had found that those who did not enrol in any course through distance education have not even paid for the degree, revealing that they had submitted fake documents after completing the degree and obtained a permit to write the examination, adding, there was no record of them having admission details.
While some of the Madras University officials were alleged to have been complicit in the scam, it is also alleged that each of those who wrote the exam illegally paid up to Rs 3 lakh each. Most of them were trying to get degrees for BBA and BCom courses. Moreover, the number of people involved in the scam is said to be likely even higher.
‘While verifying the PPR (Permanent Pass Register), some of the candidates names were not found in the DCB register and admission applications were found missing from the admission section,’ an official said.
The Vice-Chancellor of the University of Madras, Gowri has said that a committee will be set up to probe into the abuse of opportunities given to arrear students while they tried to take advantage of the online examination process where they were allowed to write exams from their home without any supervision and to post the answer sheets within particular time limit.
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