Admission racket in DU: At Ramjas, forensic experts catch fakes

[related-post]

The college has employed the services of V C Misra, an expert trained at the Central Forensic Science Laboratory, and his team to examine documents. According to Prasad, students first register and submit their documents at the departmental level at the time of admission, following which they are given to the forensic team.

“It is an added finance but one that can be easily managed. We bear the cost by charging Rs 250 for the admission forms per student. We pay Rs 5,000 per expert per day. For the first two cut-off lists, we employ six experts, for the third and fourth cut-offs, we reduce it to four persons and eventually it comes down to two people,” said Prasad.

Misra’s team uses ultraviolet lamps, magnifying glasses and different angles of light to verify documents. “We primarily look at the Class X and XII marksheets and the caste certificates because those are most prone to tampering. There are certain security features inscribed in the original marksheets, which glow when they are exposed to ultraviolet light. If it doesn’t glow, it’s fake. It takes us anywhere between eight and 10 minutes per file of documents,” said Misra.

He said the number of fake certificates have reduced over the years, possibly because students are aware that Ramjas has such a system in place. “This year barely 2-3 per cent submitted fake documents and were caught. Usually, OBC certificates are most prone to tampering,” Misra added.

Other colleges stick to their own methods. “We follow our own methods of verification and caste certificates, in particular, are rechecked. But I think, centralisation of this process is a must. It makes the process very easy for other authorities and allows a double-check. We may take up forensic methods in the future if our finances allow,” said Kamla Nehru College principal Minoti Chatterjee.

Kirori Mal College acting principal Dinesh Khattar said, “We have a system whereby an undertaking is signed by each student at the time of admission saying that if any document was found to be false, the admission will be cancelled and criminal proceedings will take place against the person. Forensic testing could be option probably in the future,” he said.

DU media spokesperson Malay Neerav said colleges will have to take a call for a foolproof system.

(With inputs from Charuvi Khandelwal, who is anintern with The Indian Express)