Journalism of Courage
As cases of admissions in first-year junior colleges on the basis of fake allotment letters by Centralised Admission Process (CAP) committee continue to get unearthed, the education department has formed flying squads to be sent to all city colleges to dig out such cases.
On Monday, the Deputy Director of Education Ramchandra Jadhav said 10 such cases had been detected so far.
Last week, Asha Gujar, an official with the Deputy Director of Education’s office, had been forced to go on compulsory leave after it came to light that she had allegedly given a fake online allotment chit to a student for admission at Symbiosis College. By Friday, the number of such cases rose to nine. Admissions of all nine students were cancelled by deputy director of education. The students were asked to take admissions in other colleges, wherever seats were available, as per merit.
On Monday, after receiving complaints that more such admissions have taken place, a team of officials visited Ness Wadia college where it was found that at least one admission had been granted based on fake allotment slip. “The allotment slip looked like the original one and the college admitted the student assuming we had sent him. When we checked the original allotment, we found that the student had been allotted Don Bosco College, which was changed to Ness Wadia. The letter is signed by Gujar,” said Meenakshi Raut, education officer.
Also, Raut said, the allotment slip was dated August 25 while the student took admission on September 2, telling the college that the delay was on account of a death in the family.
“Earlier, we were supposed to hold a round of counselling for admissions on September 2, which later got cancelled. We suspect these chits were prepared and given for that date. But since we didn’t have any session and chits were issued for that date, it aroused our suspicion,” said an official.
Jadhav said no action was being taken against any students.
“We are probing if any money exchanged hands or if any admission touts were involved. But for now, we have written to the education commissioner to transfer Gujar to SCERT and initiate a departmental inquiry in the case,” he said.
“All colleges have been instructed to keep their data of admissions ready. I have told my officers to carry a laptop while visiting colleges and cross-verify admissions data with the list of online allotments. If any more illegal admissions are found, they will be cancelled,” Jadhav said.
