The Kakatiya University (KU) postgraduate admissions conducted during August-October last year has come under a cloud after varsity authorities stumbled upon the use of forged certificates for admission in the Geology department by a student.
Sources said that M. Vijender Reddy used a forged memorandum of marks certificate to gain admission in the Geology wing of the varsity, which has only 24 seats for postgraduate students.
In all, the varsity had notified about 1,000 seats for 2011-12 year for all its postgraduate courses in 25 departments on its campus. What is striking about the forgery episode is the use of latest technology in coming out with an exact replica of the original certificate using modern scanning equipment, pointing to an organised forged certificate racket in the varsity, said sources.
According to varsity sources, as against 62.3% mentioned in the original memo of the student Vijender Reddy, the latter showed 78% marks in the forged memo to gain admission. The forgery issue came to light after the varsity administration was alerted by different students’ organisations.
Meanwhile, the varsity administration is reported to be under pressure from student leaders to keep the issue under wraps by not registering a criminal case with Kakatiya University police. A good number of student leaders reportedly pressurised university college principal Prof. N. Ramaswamy in the campus to drop the police case on Saturday evening.
When contacted, KU registrar Prof. K. Sayulu said that the admission of the student concerned has already been cancelled after the KU’s admission directorate alerted them to the use of forged certificates to gain admission.
“However, we are yet to take a decision whether to lodge a criminal case against the student,” Prof. Sayulu told this newspaper.
Besides this, it is pertinent to note that the varsity is yet to come out with foolproof admission criteria to fill the sports/NCC/NSS quota seats every year during PG admissions as many undeserving ones reportedly manage to reserve seats using fake certificates.
As per the present admission policy with regard to filling sports/NCC/NSS quota seats in all its 25 PG departments, sources said that the varsity is said to use a ‘rotational policy’, which means a postgraduate department can reserve one or two seats every year under only one category.