Jaipur: The Rajasthan Special Operations Group (SOG) has arrested three senior officials of a private university in Madhya Pradesh in connection with an alleged fake degree racket linked to the Physical Training Instructor (PTI) Recruitment Examination 2022.
The arrested accused have been identified as Mukesh Tiwari, Vice-Chancellor of Shri Satya Sai University of Technology and Medical Sciences, Sehore; Sanjay Rathore, the university's Controller of Examinations; and Anand Sharma, a computer operator. All three were brought to Jaipur to produce before a court, where they were remanded to SOG custody for further interrogation.
SOG probe into recruitment case
According to SOG, the case came to light during its investigation into irregularities in the 2022 PTI recruitment, in which several candidates allegedly submitted forged degrees while others used dummy candidates to clear the examination.
The breakthrough came after the arrest of Bharmal, a candidate from Sanchore who had secured selection through a dummy candidate. During questioning, Bharmal admitted that although he had initially claimed to possess a B.P. Ed. degree from OPJS University, Churu; he later produced a degree from Shri Satya Sai University during document verification. He confessed that the degree had been obtained fraudulently with retrospective (backdated) records.
University records examined
Following Bharmal's disclosure, the SOG obtained a court-issued search warrant and conducted a raid at the Sehore-based university. Investigators seized academic records and computer data, which were subjected to a forensic financial audit.
The audit revealed that the university had created two separate fee ledger accounts in Bharmal's name. Investigators found that the ledger entries were generated at a later date and manipulated to appear as backdated records, indicating deliberate fabrication of university documents.
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Degrees allegedly issued to candidates
SOG Additional Director General Vishal Bansal said that as per the investigation, the university issued degrees to 66 candidates who were successful in the Rajasthan PTI Recruitment 2022.
Preliminary findings suggest that most of these degrees were allegedly fabricated retrospectively and sold to candidates in exchange for lakhs of rupees. The SOG is now scrutinising the remaining beneficiaries and examining the financial transactions linked to the alleged racket.
