MBBS

caste

MBA

Sydenham Institute of Management Studies

Action comes a fortnight after 15students from Mumbai were thrown out for the same reasonA fortnight after 15 MBBS students from Mumbai were expelled for submitting fakecertificates to secure admissions under the scheduled castes/tribes (SC/ST) quota, exactly the same number of students have now been thrown out of three of the city’s topcolleges for the same reason.The Directorate of Technical Education (DTE) has come up with a list of such students, identified as Shaaj Hamid Ansari, Rahul Kankaria, Chintaman Shah, Chirag Shah, Jinal Dalal, Manasvi Daga, Manar Lakdawala, Miti Shah (all from theand Research Education, Churchgate), Parth Shah, Ronak Doshi, Dhawal Sanghavi, Prerna Pardeshi, and Shail Shah (all from the Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies, Churchgate).Two students, whose identities have been withheld for verification, had secured admission to the LN Welingkar Institute of Management Development and Research in Matunga. The college sources said that one of them had taken a transfer to another college where her admission had been cancelled, while the college was in the process of filing a police complaint against the other.While a retired Mantralaya staffer had exposed the MBBS admissions scam by tipping off the Directorate of Medical Education and Research (DMER), the MBA admissions racket was busted by an anonymous complainant, who alerted the DTE about a few students fraudulently securing admissions under the SC/ST quota. A scrutiny of the caste certificates provided by the above-mentioned 15 students revealed that all certificates were fake. The DTE top brass is now worried that this could just be a tip of the iceberg.“There could be more such cases,” said the DTE joint director, Dayanand Meshram. “We had asked all affiliated institutes to check documents of all students. The ineligible students have been expelled and the seats have been allotted to the deserving candidates,” he said.At the time of going to press, the Sydenham Institute of Management Studies had filed a complaint against the students at Marine Drive Police Station. “We were alerted by the DTE about a few students submitting fake caste certificates and a probe revealed eight such cases in our institute. A police complaint has already been submitted,” the Sydenham director, Manoj Bhide, said.The police are already claiming a breakthrough, saying they have arrested a man for allegedly threatening the Sydenham management and a few DTE officials after the students were expelled. The accused has been identified as Ibrahim Morani, 28, but it wasn’t clear whether he was related to any of the expelled students, or whether he was a part of the syndicate that facilitated the fake certificates.“We were approached by the Sydenham authorities about a man threatening them. Prima facie, it appears he is a part of the fake certificates syndicate,” an officer from Marine Drive Police Station said.Meanwhile, the police said that the expelled students have been booked under the Indian Penal Code sections 420 for cheating, 467 for forgery, and 468 for forgery with an intention of cheating.“One of the colleges has filed a complaint and a case has been registered against the students,” Deputy Commissioner of Police (Zone I) Manoj Kumar Sharma said.