Fake degree scam: 2 teachers sentenced to 5 years in jail

Dehradun: The chief judicial magistrate, Rudraprayag, sentenced two govt teachers to five years in prison for securing employment with fraudulent educational documents. The court also imposed a fine of Rs 10,000 each and remanded them to prison. Upon scrutiny of documents, the court found that Vikram Singh and Shiv Singh Rana had submitted fake Bachelor of Education (BEd) degrees, which were purportedly issued from Chaudhary Charan Singh (CCS) University, Meerut.
The case came to light following a complaint against 19 govt teachers accused of procuring fake degrees.A special investigation team (SIT) was formed in July 2018 to conduct an inquiry. To date, 12 teachers have been imprisoned for similar offences, while seven remain under the SIT scanner.
Rana and Singh, working as assistant teachers in Rudraprayag, had FIRs lodged against them by the basic education department on July 9, 2018, and Aug 14, 2018, respectively. They were arrested on Nov 20, 2018, but secured bail within a month on Dec 3. Cross-checking their degrees with CCS University revealed that the degrees were fake. The accused had secured their govt jobs in 2005, claiming that they were regular students at the university and had been falsely accused.
However, the university provided an affidavit denying the issuance of any degree to the accused and confirming that the names were not in the university’s records. After hearing arguments from both sides, the court found Singh and Rana guilty under sections 420 (cheating) and 471 (fraudulently using forged documents) of the IPC.