Maharashtra school certificate scam: 2,700 fake school papers issued since 2017; 4 held

Police have also identified 12 more suspects in the case, in addition to four arrested earlier, and have launched a search for them.

On May 2, following an investigation that lasted over two months, the police arrested four people involved in issuing fake passing certificates of Class 10 by an entity named the Maharashtra State Open School. An initial probe by the police revealed that around 35 people had been issued such fraudulent certificates by the four arrested and their aides.

“After the first four arrests, we started looking into the authenticity of the entity named Maharashtra State Open School. Our probe showed that the entity is unauthorised and had been illegally issuing Class 10 certificates in exchange for money. The state government’s authorised body for open schooling is named Maharashtra State Board of Open Schooling, while the suspects operated a website with a similar sounding address and name – Maharashtra State Open School,” said Assistant Commissioner of Police Narayan Shirgaonkar, who is heading the investigation.

“We found further that the same set of people were operating two more websites – Industrial Training Institute or ITI which claimed to conduct courses, and another claiming to conduct degree courses. None of these three entities have a physical presence and have been operating since 2017,” said ACP Shirgaonkar.

Officials said the suspects charged anywhere between Rs 40,000 and 60,000 for these fake certificates. Shirgaonkar said, “We are yet to get to the number of fake degrees they have issued. We have launched a search for 12 more suspects in the case from across Maharashtra.”

Anuradha Oak, Secretary of Maharashtra State Board for Secondary and Higher Secondary Education (MSBSHSE), said the police have not contacted the board about the investigation in the fake Class 10 certificate scam. “Maharashtra State Open School is a fake entity and their website is not linked to the board in any manner. The police have not contacted us so far. There’s nothing that we can do suo motu in this case. If someone submits certificates to us to check their authenticity, we use the validation features of MSBSHSE to validate them,” said Oak.

She said the board has an open school project named ‘Mukta Shala’ but it does not include teaching or exams for Class 10. “The Mukt Shala admits students only for Class 5 and Class 8,” said Oak.

Earlier, sleuths from Pune City Police’s Crime Branch were working on a tip off received by ACP Shirgaonkar in February, that a man identified as Sandeep Kamble from Sangli had been selling matriculation certificates to those who failed or had not given the Class 10 exam. A dummy buyer posing as a failed Class 5 student was sent to him. Kamble told him he would charge Rs 60,000 for a certificate.

On February 9, Kamble was sent Rs 39,000 online by the dummy buyer. He then delayed issuing the certificate on the pretext of ongoing board exams in the state. On April 10, Kamble took another Rs 16,000 in cash from the dummy buyer, and on April 25, he sent a soft copy of a passing certificate.

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On April 30, Kamble was arrested after being caught red-handed, handing over the certificate to the dummy buyer, while accepting the remaining Rs 5,000.