By Our Reporter
in the city on Friday. (ST)
SHILLONG: The State CID sleuths on Friday seized over four thousand allegedly fake PhD theses during a raid on the CMJ University office in the city.
The theses were found concealed in a secured storage room inside the CMJ University office located in Laitumkhrah area of the city.
“We have seized over 4000 printed PhD theses on various subjects,” a CID officer informed, adding that another 6000 such theses have been found at the University’s Jorabat campus.
As per information available on the University website, a student desiring to pursue a PhD programme from the University has to pay around Rs 1.27 lakh.
“To get a PhD degree the University charged Rs 1.27 lakh, so these 10,000 odd theses would bring in about Rs 127 crore,” the CID official said.
Officers participating in the raid were left bemused while going through the theses which contained topics like ‘intelligence of a Kho-Kho player’ to ‘marketing low cholesterol oil in India’. One thesis dealt with the topics ‘Corruption in India – hurdles and remedies’ by one S Venkata Lakshmi which was submitted vaguely to the Faculty of Public Administration, while another thesis had the cover entitles ‘Role of ICICI bank in housing finance – a case study NCR by one Sheikh Rafik Afsar, while the inside page was titled ‘A study of emotional intelligence and self concept of Kho Kho players and non Kho Kho players’ by one Amit Naru whose papers were supervised by Anurag Agnhotri, Assistant Professor, CVS College, Delhi University.
The CID officer said that the theses seem to have been printed in Kolkata as they bore telltale signs of it.
“We have to investigate who ordered these theses to be printed at this printing press in Kolkata. This is a clear case of a bigger scam,” the official said.
The crackdown on the University began almost three months back after the then Meghalaya Governor Ranjit Shekhar Mooshahary filed an FIR against the private University alleging that it was awarding fake degrees to the students.
Established in 2009 vide a State Act, the CMJ University has allegedly awarded a record number of 434 PhD degrees in the past one year apart from registering 490 more PhD scholars during the same year, the Governor Secretariat had stated in the complaint.