A private university in Rajasthan has issued a total of 43,409 fake degrees in about 19 states, including Rajasthan and neighbouring country Nepal, since 2013, an official of the state’s Special Operations Group familiar with the matter said.
SOG Additional Director General of Police (ADGP) VK Singh said, “Churu-based Om Prakash Jogendra Singh (OPJS) University was established in 2013, since then they issued a large number of fake certificates to students in many different states and a neighbouring country. It was also found that most of them later also got jobs in the governments of the respective states and the country on the basis of fake certificates.”
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He also said that the SOG has arrested OPJS University owner Jogender Singh Dalal along with its former president Sarita Karvasara and former registrar Jitendra Yadav (who also currently owns two other private universities in Rajasthan and Gujarat) in the case on July 5.
Though no state-wise data was immediately available on the classification of number of degrees by OPJS owners, SOG deputy inspector general (DIG) Paris Deshmukh said maximum degrees were issued to people in Rajasthan, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Punjab, Gujarat, Maharashtra and West Bengal.
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Meanwhile, degrees were also issued to a large number of students in Delhi, Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Meghalaya, Odisha, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Goa, Telangana, Jammu and Kashmir, Uttarakhand and Nepal.
mode of operation
According to the DIG, the incident came to light after the degrees of 1,300 applicants, who appeared for the Physical Training Instructor (PTI) exam 2022, were found to be fake during the verification process by the examination controlling agency in the state on April 8, 2024.
He said, “All these were issued by the OPJS university. Meanwhile, we received several complaints on the same issue against OPJS through the SOG helpline number.”
During the investigation, the SOG found that the university was issuing fake certificates on backdated dates and also violating several norms of university-recognition guidelines. “For instance, they had no authority to run any agriculture course but awarded a total of 930 degrees. Despite having only 28 employees, they claimed on their websites that they were running more than 23 courses, even at the masters and PhD levels,” Deshmukh said.
He also said that OPJS was also barred by the UGC from enrolling scholars in its PhD programmes in 2023. “The decision was taken after the university failed to submit the requisite data regarding PhD degrees awarded in 2018,” the official said.
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As per the data provided by the SOG, OPJS has issued the maximum number of degrees at 8861 for engineering courses, followed by 7826 for education courses, 6188 for medical courses, 5397 for various arts subjects and 3167 for pharmacy courses.
“It was also found that they were not even approved for such a large number of admissions in these courses but they issued degrees, which were seized by the SOG. They were functioning as a printing press, providing degrees from their university in any part of the country in exchange for money,” Deshmukh said.
The SOG investigation revealed that middlemen from OPJS universities across the country supplied degree-seeking candidates for specific subjects and levels in return for a commission of around 10% to 15%. “The payment to the candidates was determined based on the value of a subject in the market and the level of degree required. From Rs 50,000 “There were 800,000 transactions between the candidate and OPJS owners,” Deshmukh said.
He further said: “Prima facie, the entire inter-state racket was operated through these groups of middlemen who worked with OPJS for several private universities in those states. We suspect that those private universities in these 19 states and Nepal also issue fake certificates in local areas. The owners of OPJS targeted the middlemen of those universities to lead the market of fake certificates by eliminating competitors.”
The middlemen would either go to the owners to get the physical copy of the certificate or get it on WhatsApp and send it to the concerned candidates.
The mission that busted the racket
Following the PTI-2022 verification incident, the SOG conducted a decoy operation in April and nabbed a middleman, Pradeep Sharma, in Churu, who worked for both OPJS University and Uttarakhand-based private institute Himalayan Garhwal University.
During Sharma’s interrogation, names of six more middlemen also cropped up – all of them were arrested by May. “Meanwhile, we also got solid evidence against Dalal, Karvasara and Yadav and arrested them on July 5.”
The DIG said Dalal was also arrested by the Haryana Police in 2018 in connection with a scholarship scam in the state. “Before opening OPJS in 2013, he was also part of the Rohtak-based IPS College and Shiksha Anusandhan Academy and he may have issued some fake certificates there too, which are under investigation,” Deshmukh said.
On the other hand, SOG officials said that Yadav, despite joining OPJS in 2015 without any suspicious criminal record, created a strong network in the fake certificate market in India and owned two other universities – Sunrise University in Alwar, Rajasthan and MK University in Patan, Gujarat – to expand his business.
Deshmukh said, “Both Dalal and Yadav were in the process of opening two more universities — Vedic University in Jaipur and Jid University in Bundi — the approval of which is still pending with the Rajasthan Higher Education Department.”
Action and way forward
Meanwhile, the state higher education department had on June 24 ordered stopping of all new admission process in the university in view of the suspicious role of the owners as per the SOG report.
“We have also asked them to check the 43,909 candidates who were issued certificates by the OPJS to find out if they are all fake. They will now check the fee submission and admission date of those candidates,” Deshmukh said.
The Department of Personnel (DoP) had on June 6 issued another order to all departments of the Rajasthan government, asking them to check the degrees of all employees who joined the government in the last five years, an official familiar with the matter said.
Deshmukh said, “We have also contacted the administration of the 19 states and Nepal where OPJS has issued fake certificates. A formal letter will soon be sent to all these states so that they can also check the degrees of employees working in their respective state governments.”
Meanwhile, SOG officials also informed that around 15 to 16 more private universities are also under the scanner of the agency in the fake certificate case.
“We have also received three independent complaints which found that candidates with OPJS degrees had participated in a massive paper leak racket or impersonated candidates to clear several recruitment exams in Rajasthan. Investigation is underway against them too,” the DIG said.
