Doctor arrested for purported fake master’s degree granted bail

MUMBAI: A fake orthopaedic surgeon, Dr. Atul Wankhede, granted bail for ₹50,000, faces fraud and threats after a patient exposed his forged degree.

MUMBAI: The Dadar metropolitan magistrate court on Tuesday granted bail to a man who was practising as a fake orthopaedic surgeon with a forged master’s degree. Judicial magistrate SP Bhosale ordered 44-year-old Dr Atul Wankhede to be released upon furnishing ₹50,000 in cash.

Mumbai, India. 29, 2025: Dr. Atul Wankhede was arrested by Mumbai Police in a fake MS degree case. (HT Photo) (Hindustan Times)

The reason for granting bail was not clear at the time of going to press.

Apart from endangering patients’ lives, Dr Wankhede was also booked for threatening individuals and fraudulently obtaining official identity documents and a passport. Police said he acquired his documents using the address of a home he was not residing in. He was arrested from his house in Juhu while trying to flee the country following a complaint by an old patient, Avinash Saminder, 24.

The complainant, Saminder, a Chembur resident, has been suffering from chronic back pain since 2016-2017. Even after consulting several doctors, his condition did not improve. In November 2024, he booked an appointment with Dr Wankhede at a five-star hospital in the western suburbs, said a police officer.

After consultation, he was prescribed painkillers and advised to exercise. However, he began experiencing more pain and alleged that his condition worsened after listening to Wankhede.

According to the FIR, Dr Wankhede forged his degree graduating from KEM Hospital in Pune.

Police said when Saminder later approached doctors at the Poddar Hospital in Worli where a hospital staff person told him that Dr Wankhede’s master’s degree was forged.

Saminder then wrote to the Maharashtra Medical Council and learnt they had received many complaints about Wankhede. The police could not find commensurate records supporting Wankhede’s claims about his degree’s legitimacy.

“We are trying to get all records about Dr Wankhede and the number of patients he has operated upon from the hospital. Some of his patients have already approached us,” said a police officer.

The police are also trying to find whether he forged his MBBS degree too.