Profs with fake degrees? Nobody turns up to verify

HYDERABAD: After several principals and faculty members from various Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University Hyderabad (JNTUH)-affiliated colleges failed to show up before for verification of their original certificates, varsity officials have now raised serious doubt over the authenticity of their degrees.

Officials suspect that these staffers either possess ‘invalid’ degrees or have moved on to some other profession, other than teaching.

“We had called about 122 faculty members and principals, against whom we have received complaints. While some of them intimated us about not being in the teaching profession any more, some failed to show up for the verification process. We have not received any communication from them so far. We suspect that these faculty members have something to hide and are now looking into their credentials,” said N Yadaiah, registrar, JNTUH. According to him there are at least 10 people on this list of suspects who might have invalid degrees.

Reacting to the university’s move, college managements said that JNTU should only check whether a certificate is fabricated or authentic. “When a college is approved by the University Grants Commission (UGC), JNTU has no right to say that a degree from a particular varsity or college is not valid. They just need to check whether or not a candidate has actually passed out from a varsity and holds a valid degree,” said K Ramadass of Telangana Private College Management Joint Action Committee (JAC).

Apart from this, JNTUH had also asked colleges to find out if any of their faculty members had degrees from the four deemed universities listed by the Supreme Court between 2001 and 2005.

As per the apex court order, engineering degrees of students enrolled with four universities--- JRN Rajasthan Vidyapeeth, Rajasthan, Institute of Advanced Studies in Education, Rajasthan, Allahabad Agriculture Research Institute, Allahabad, Vinayaka Mission's Research Foundation, Salem, Tamil Nadu-- in distance mode during the academic years 2001-2005 remain suspended unless they pass a one-time examination conducted by AICTE and the UGC.