Forensics alone won't help fraud in admissions

Delhi University’s admission committee has recommended seeking help of forensic experts to detect fake certificates, but the university insiders suggest that colleges would need to do more to curb backdoor entries.

The university is in the last leg of finalising its policy for undergraduate admissions. Over five dozen undergrad colleges in DU admit more than 54,000 students every year.

A DU official said it’s implausible for all colleges to hire forensic experts because the city doesn’t have too many of them.

Last year, four students of Delhi College and Arts and Commerce (DCAC) were expelled on charges of forging their academic documents. Similar cases were reported from Ramjas College, Hindu College, Shaheed Bhagat Singh College and Sri Venkateswara College in the last several years, a university official said. Until last year, it was the prerogative of colleges to appoint forensic experts.

On the last year’s admission scam, DCAC principal Rajiv Chopra said fake admissions are not possible without the involvement of college insiders. According to him, one of the four students who was expelled on charges of submitting forged academic documents last year had admitted paying Rs 17 lakh to a tout for securing admission. Chopra said the police investigation has made no headway.

“No fake admissions can happen without collusion of the college staff. No arrests have been made in this case,” he told Deccan Herald. In fact, the expelled students, he said, are fighting a court battle against him.

“Forensic experts are supposed to screen out forged certificates at the time of admission, but they can’t physically examine all certificates. So they might have to rely on the sampling method; they can take 10-20 certificates from every lot and examine,” said R N Dubey, a member of the admission committee.

To keep a check on forged documents, the administrative officers at colleges generally rely on information provided by the university on CDs, which contain information on class 12 results of various state and central boards.

For verification of the certificates submitted by students from Scheduled Castes (SCs), Scheduled Tribes (STs), and Other Backward Classes (OBCs), the colleges contact the issuing authorities. According to the DCAC principal, this process sometimes takes more than a year.