Ooty: It seems a tragedy beyond ordinary human comprehension. The arrest of two assistant professors of Botany working at the Government Arts College (GAC) here for producing fake Ph.D certificates to get recruited to their jobs a decade ago has not only shocked the academic fraternity, but also led to the suspicion that there was something wrong with the recruitment process conducted by the Teachers Recruitment Board (TRB) then.
Sources said that more than 100 such suspected cases across the state are under the scanner now. Malpractices to get more marks in the interview are suspected now as the Ph.D. degree carried weightage for recruitment.
Krishnamoorthy and Nagendiran who were arrested here over the fake Ph.D certificate issue, joined the GAC here in 2010 and have completed a near decade long service there. Recently Nagendiran was transferred to Karur.
As complaints emanated in the recent weeks against the duo over their Ph.D degrees, the Directorate of Collegiate Education in Chennai (DCE) directed the GAC administration here to lodge a complaint against the duo with police here.
After investigation, police found that the duo had produced fake Ph.D certificates at the time of the interview held at TRB in Chennai in 2009-10. They were arrested on Sunday evening here and remanded to custody, police sources said.
“While two guest lecturers in the Government Arts College (GAC) here in Ooty were already dismissed for producing such fake certificates a year ago, litigation is still pending in this issue. It is learnt now that three more assistant professors who worked in the GAC here and were transferred to other places in the recent past, are under the scanner too for fake certificates. It is also suspected that around 127 such persons with fake certificates got recruited in various colleges across Tamil Nadu during the recruitment drive held between 2007 and 2010. “An internal investigation is underway to find out the facts,” sources maintained.
