Mamta, a resident of Charkhi Dadri in Bhiwani district of Haryana, was working as Assistant Employment Officer with Haryana government, was shocked when her degree which was earlier certified as original, was declared fake.

Mamta had completed MA Psychology in 2011 from Karnal study centre of a private university based in Solan in Himachal Pradesh and had got government job on the basis of the degree.

But her degree was declared fake by the private university in April 2019 after verifying to Haryana government in 2016 that the degree was original as per their records that resulted in her dismissal from service.

The trouble for Mamta started after her sister-in-law’s relations with her husband soured with the latter marrying another woman.

“As I sided with my sister-in-law, her husband started targeting me and colluded with university authorities who declared my degree fake, three years after verifying my degree as original,” a visibly shaken Mamta told media on Sunday.

She said she had pursued with studies at Karnal study centre from 2009-11 along with 15-20 students who were from Himachal, Haryana, Chattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh.

But the university later refused to accept that they even provided MA Psychology course at its centre.

The family dispute later led to huge conspiracy with Mamta along with former student leader of Haryana Sampurn Singh approaching higher authorities and approaching University Grants Commission to probe the irregularities of the private university.

The complaint resulted in 13 universities of the country, two of them from Himachal, coming under lens for allegedly selling degrees in lieu of money with UGC writing to concerned state governments to probe these.

“In 2019, the private university filed a case with Dharampur police station in Solan district against 21 candidates for fake degrees but the case was only filed against Mamta. Later, a complaint was filed against her in Panchkula,” Sampuran Singh said.

Singh said they approached HP Private Educational Institutions Regulatory Authority for action against the university which verified that the degree was original as per the university’s records.

The authority had also found 103 degrees issued by the Solan based university as fake and wrote to the police for action against the varsity but no action was taken on the complaint at that time. Later, we approached the UGC authorities who instructed the state government to take action on the complaint.

It is worthwhile to mention here that the investigations were started on the basis of UGC letter which had mentioned Shimla and Solan based universities indulging in sale of fake degrees.

The Shimla based private university had allegedly sold around 15,000 fake degrees for almost all courses through agents across the country to mint money.

In fact, the university sold off those technical education courses degrees under which there were only limited seats allocated to educational institutes.

While the Solan based private university had sold around 4.5 lakh fake degrees in the last 7 years with the help of agents from Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, UP, Bihar, Delhi, West Bengal and South India.

Police in its probe had found incriminating evidence against Solan based university for issuing fake degrees in lieu of money while probe against Shimla based private university was on.