11 Professors With Fake PhDs Caught And Suspended In Tamil Nadu; DCE Orders Verification Of Government Colleges’ Faculty

The Directorate of Collegiate Education (DCE) has ordered verification of all certificates submitted by faculty members across government colleges in Tamil Nadu after 11 professors were caught with fake PhD certificates and suspended, the Times of India reports.

Sources reveal that the certificates come from fake universities in Meghalaya, Rajasthan and Bihar. Replying to a Right to Information (RTI) claim, the DCE affirmed that departmental actions had been started against the professors with fake certificates.

The new steps of actions came after two assistant professors from the botany department were caught with fake PhD certificates in January.

“One of them had produced a certificate in the name of Veer Ranveer University in Rajasthan, and another member produced the certificate from Meghalaya- both are non-existent,” an official source said.

President of the Association of University Teachers (AUT), N Pasupathy said that most of the fake certificates were generated in names of universities from North India, and there is no mechanism to check them.

The authorities need to scrutinize the certificates during recruitment or immediately after recruitment,” he added. Various faculty associations have asked the state and central governments to begin with a system of QR code in PhD certificates to keep a check on such malpractice.