A court here Thursday sentenced former vice-chancellor of Visva Bharati univeristy Dilip Kumar Sinha, ex-registrar Dilip Mukhopadhaya and former teacher Mukti Dev to five years imprisonment in a forgery and conspiracy case.

Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate, Bolpur, Aurobindo Mishra also ordered the three convicted persons to pay a fine of Rs 1000 each.

The court on Wednesday had convicted the three in the case of forgery and conspiracy.

Sinha, Mukhopadhaya and Dev appealed for interim bail Thursday after the judgement was passed but the court turned down their request, said assistant public prosecutor, Phiroj Pal.

Dev had worked as a lecturer in the Mathematics department in the university, teaching post-graduate students for around six years, without having the required qualification.

The crime had come to light in 2004, months after the theft of Rabindranath Tagore's Nobel medal. Sinha had retired by then and the investigation was handed over to the CID.

During investigation, it was found that she had passed the higher secondary examination and had secured the teaching job at the central university in 1997 by submitting photocopies of fake testimonials at the time of joining.

Those photocopies were attested by Sinha, who was then the VC of the university.

After Sinha's retirement in 2001, Dev was show-caused in 2004 by the Visva Bharati executive council, which subsequently suspended and then dismissed her.

Sinha was arrested by the CID from his Kolkata residence in connection with the case in June, 2004 and subsequently, granted bail.

In March 2005, the CID had submitted the charge sheet against the trio in a Bolpur court.

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