Delhi: 5 men held for running fake degree racket

Police got a tip that a group of coaching and counselling centres in Delhi and NCR are issuing fake degrees after taking money from students

Over 5,500 fake degrees of MBA, BAMS, and B.Tech; a dozen education call centres or counselling centres in Delhi, Noida and Rajasthan; names of over 20 universities used — a group of five men allegedly ran a fake degree racket for two years by targeting young men and women who were desperately looking for jobs and needed degrees from known universities.

Investigators said the accused are owners/directors of more than 25 coaching centres and counselling centres. (Representational image)

On Friday, the Delhi Police Crime Branch said they busted a fake degree racket and arrested five men in connection with the case with hundreds of fake degrees, certificates, devices and other evidence.

Investigators said the accused are owners/directors of more than 25 coaching centres and counselling centres where they lured students by saying they would provide them “degree at the earliest” and then would offer them a fake degree for ₹1-1.5 lakhs.

A team led by ACP Ramesh Lamba received a tip that a group of coaching and counselling centres in Delhi and NCR are issuing fake degrees after taking hefty amount from students.

“We found involvement of coaching centre owners. They gave backdated fake degrees. The amount dependent on the degree. For BAMS, B.Tech and MBA, the amount was more. For BA, MA, B.Ed it was around ₹80,000 to ₹1 lakh” said an officer.

Police said that on June 6 they raided the Paramhands Vidyapeeth centre at Netaji Subhash place and arrested its owner Vicky Harjani with over 75 forged degrees.

Special Commissioner of Police (Crime) Devendra Srivastava said the accused and his associates have education counselling centres and call centres in Delhi, Noida, Ghaziabad and Rajasthan. He said “They used names of universities in Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Sikkim, Meghalaya, and Tamil Nadu.”

Police said that after Harjani’s arrests and interrogation, further raids were conducted in Delhi to identify and catch his aides. Police said four other men- Vivek Gupta, Satbir Singh, Narayan Jee and Avnish Kansal.

“We recovered a total of 275 forged degree certificates and other marksheets. We also seized over 20 mobile phones and six laptops. The forensic analysis of the devices revealed an additional 5500 fake degrees and mark sheets for programs such as B.A., B.Sc., B.Com., B.Tech, BAMS, B.Ed., MBA, and M.A. These documents originated from multiple universities across several states” said Srivastava.

During interrogation, police said they found the accused promoted their services on WhatsApp, Telegram and Facebook groups to students across India.

“Students were lured with promises of admission into recognized UGC and postgraduate courses — often with the added offer of backdated documents. Once convinced, the students submitted their personal and academic details, which were passed along to other members of the network. These members then generated professional-looking forged documents resembling those from legitimate universities” added Srivasatava.

Police said Harjani ran two institutes in NSP and Rohini and employed telecallers to target students. His associate, Gupta, operated around seven counselling centres in Noida. Singh ran a coaching centre in Faridabad. Jee works from Bihar and was trying to set up a business in Delhi. Kansal is involved in two previous cases in Rajasthan where he cheated students and offered them fake degrees.