New Delhi: A nexus between private universities, dalals (middlemen), paper leak gangs, and government job aspirants drove recruitment scams in the state, an investigation into Om Parkash Jogender Singh (OPJS) University in Rajasthan’s Churu has revealed.
Investigators have termed the findings a “cruel joke” on the state’s education system, with the Rajasthan government now deciding to probe three lakh recruitments in government jobs in the last five years.
Seven days ago, the Rajasthan Special Operations Group (SOG) formally registered an FIR against OPJS University for issuing fake degrees and arrested founder-owner Joginder Singh Dalal, former chairperson Sarita Karwasra, and former registrar Jitendra Yadav.
The OPJS university was established in 2013 and has since awarded over 43,000 degrees, far more than authorised, including 708 PhDs, over 8,000 engineering degrees, and over 1,600 degrees in physical education.
The FIR came after a complaint about backdated degrees issued by the university for aspirants appearing for government exams from an official posted in the Rajasthan Subordinate and Ministerial Services Selection.
According to sources in the Rajasthan police, the investigation and verifications began in March after they received the complaint. The OPJS university has only 30 staff members on its payroll, and the SOG over the last five months found no students in its vicinity.
“There are no teachers, yet degrees are awarded. There are more teachers in primary schools. It is impossible for a university that has awarded 43,000 degrees, including PhDs, to run with just 30 staff members,” Additional Director General of Police (SOG) V.K. Singh told ThePrint. “The university has granted degrees and certificates without accreditation in courses — MSc agriculture, BEd and BPed (Bachelors of Physical Education).”
According to the SOG, Yadav, who started as a lab technician, was the university registrar from 2015 to 2020. Karwasra was the registrar from 2013 to 2015 before becoming the chairperson from 2015 to 2020.
After his tenure, Yadav moved on to co-own Sunrise University in Alwar, Rajasthan; opened another university in Patan, Gujarat; and planned to start a third in Baran, Rajasthan.
Currently, Dalal has four cases against him. Two cases are in Haryana for his alleged involvement in scholarship scams. The other two came for awarding fake degrees, in Rajasthan. Yadav, police sources said, has never been arrested but has been questioned in all cases against Dalal.
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‘A printing press’
Sources in the Rajasthan Police called the university a “printing press” rather than an educational institute.
“The accused have said during interrogation that they would pay some temporary teachers through UPI. Which university pays in UPI mode? They have also not been able to show any such transactions so far to prove the same,” a source said.
Speaking about the nexus, the police sources said that candidates without university degrees but looking for government jobs would seek the aid of some middlemen, who first connected them to paper leak gangs. The middlemen provided the candidates with the names of private universities, where they purportedly were pursuing degrees, only so that they could fill out the job forms. The paper leak gangs gave them question papers or helped them pass exams using dummy candidates. Later, the middlemen finally got them in contact with the universities, which provided them with backdated degrees and certificates.
For instance, the investigators found evidence of “malpractice” in the 2022 Physical Training Instructor (PTI) exam. Over 1,300 aspirants who had taken the exam had degrees from Om Parkash Jogender Singh University. That, investigators said, was despite OPJS University’s accreditation only for 100 seats in this particular course since 2016.
“Since the exam required candidates to be enrolled for the course from before 2020, the varsity gave them backdated certificates,” another police source said.
However, police sources said there were no direct links between the varsity and the paper leak mafia. “This is all through middlemen. It’s a multilayered nexus,” a source said.
When the SOG officers asked Dalal for old records of students, he allegedly claimed that fire had destroyed them in December 2019. Police
sources said he with the other accused made more than Rs 400 crore through the scam.
Now, the officers will start questioning aspirants who have claimed to have passed finals from the university and got selected for government jobs through recruitment exams. They have reached out to the education department as well over the irregularities in the exams held by OPJS.
In December last year, the University Grants Commission (UGC) declared the varsity “unrecognised” because it had failed to comply with the commission’s norms for awarding PhD degrees. Despite multiple notices and reminders by the UGC, OPJS allegedly had not provided information and data on PhDs awarded in 2018. Meanwhile, the higher education department has also halted fresh admissions into the varsity.
(Edited by Madhurita Goswami)
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