A local court has sentenced a man to five-year jail term for conning authorities of a medical college in Uttarakhand and managing to land the job of an associate professor on the basis of fake degrees.
Besides the jail term, Pauri's?Chief Judicial Magistrate Mahesh Chandra Kaushik yesterday imposed a fine of Rs 5,000 on K P Singh after he pleaded guilty for?submitting fake degrees for his appointment as an associate professor at the medical college and teaching there for about a year.
According to government prosecutor Digpal Singh Negi, K P Singh joined as associate professor at Veer Chandra Singh Garhwali Government Medical College at Srinagar in Garhwal on September 1, 2011 in the department of microbiology.
At the time of the appointment, he submitted a photocopy of his degree certificate in the institute.
He was directed to produce the original copy of the degree before college administration. But despite repeated reminders, he did not produce the degree before college administration.
This raised suspicion of the then head of the institution Dr Sneh lata Sud. She wrote a letter to the Secretary, Medical Education, about the doubts over the degree of Singh.
Sud subsequently launched an inquiry and appointed Neelam Sharma, the head of the microbiology department, as the investigating officer.
The investigation revealed that the photocopy submitted by K P Singh was fake.
On?June 12 last year, the new head of the institution Dr V L Jahangeer lodged an FIR against Singh.
The accused was arrested and sent to jail.