CHENNAI: If you can aspire it, you can achieve it with dedication—that’s something R Ashok Kumar Choudhary, 35, from Guntur proved to himself. But when he blended dedication with fraud, his medallions were snatched away, he was dumped behind the bars.

The Class 8 dropout’s journey from the subalterns of Andhra Pradesh to a professor’s seat in an engineering college in Kancheepuram could be a tale of a genius gone the wrong way. He forged three degrees – a PhD, an MBA and an MSc – to get a teaching job, but also made sure that he taught—at least for three years before he was caught on Friday after some colleagues stumbled upon the real profile of the PhD holder on the internet.

Police said Ashok Kumar Choudhary, who officially changed his name to Ravi Kumar Reddy, had been working as a professor at Saveetha Engineering College in Thandalam near Kancheepuram since May 2012. His forged PhD said he was an expert in power systems. He taught the subject to students of electrical and electronics engineering (EEE).

“Not once did anyone doubt his knowledge of the subject,” said a faculty member. “Students felt he was a good teacher. How did he manage it?” Police asked Reddy the same question, and he told them how.

Reddy, then called Choudary, worked in a photocopier shop in Guntur after he failed in his Class 8. “He said the failure didn’t stop him from educating himself,” said an investigating officer. “He wanted to be respected as an educated person. A lot of students would leave their textbooks to be photocopied. Chouhary would make an extra copy of the book and read it at leisure time.”

He realized he could amass knowledge, but not an academic qualification. “That’s when he decided to forge a certificate,” said the police officer. First it was an Industrial Training Institute diploma, with which he got a job in a private company. Then he forged an MSc certificate and moved on to a better job. With his stature, his ambition grew.

He moved to Delhi and joined a preparation class for CAT. His learning skills were such that the institute absorbed him as a part-time teacher soon after he completed the one-year course. Meanwhile, he had forged another PhD certificate claiming to be a scholar in power systems, from the Indian Institute of Sciences Bangalore. With enough ‘credentials’ in his armour, he changed his name to Ravi Kumar Reddy – the name of a PhD holder from IISc – and got the job at Saveetha Engineering College in 2012. He drew a monthly salary of Rs1.12 lakh.

Choudhary, now Reddy, told his interrogators that he would read up and download content to prepare for the lectures that he delivered. The first trace of suspicion surfaced among his colleagues when Reddy refused to meet a team of academics who wanted to discuss some topics of his interest. Later it turned out that he was evasive because some of the team members were from IISc, from where he claimed he had taken his PhD.

Suspicious colleagues did some research on the internet and came across the profile of an IISc alumnus called B Ravi Kumar. All the ‘credentials’ Reddy claimed to have matched with this man’s but the photograph was different. They called police.

