SOG arrests PHED junior engineer for submitting fake M.Tech degree in RPSC recruitment

Jaipur: The Special Operations Group (SOG) of Rajasthan Police has arrested a junior engineer of the Public Health Engineering Department posted in Bhinder for allegedly submitting a forged M.Tech degree with his application for a recruitment examination conducted by the Rajasthan Public Service Commission (RPSC), Additional Director General of Police (SOG) Vishal Bansal said. The accused, Durgashankar Menariya, was produced before a court, which remanded him to police custody.

According to the SOG, the RPSC, Ajmer had invited online applications in 2018-19 for the Group Instructor/Surveyor/Assistant Apprenticeship Advisor Grade-II recruitment examination. Menariya, son of Radhakishan Menariya and a resident of Wana village in Bhinder tehsil of Udaipur district, applied for the post and uploaded with his application an M.Tech (Electrical Power System) degree stated to have been issued by Manav Bharti University, Solan, Himachal Pradesh.

After the written examination and interview, the commission finally selected Menariya, and the Training, Skill Planning and Entrepreneurship Department, Directorate of Technical Education, Jodhpur was directed to verify his educational documents with the universities concerned before giving the appointment. When the documents could not be verified, the director of the department got a case registered at the SOG police station under Sections 420, 467, 468, 471 and 120B of the Indian Penal Code.

During the investigation, the SOG obtained the departmental records and certified copies of the educational certificates submitted by the candidate. Menariya had shown in his application that he obtained the M.Tech degree from Manav Bharti University between 2010 and 2012. On verification from the university, it emerged that the degree had not been issued in his name and was found to be fabricated and forged, police said.

Notably, the post he applied for did not require a postgraduate (M.Tech) degree — a graduate qualification was sufficient. Despite this, the accused allegedly mentioned the fake degree in his application out of over-enthusiasm and to project himself as more qualified.

Interrogation further revealed that on the strength of the same forged degree, Menariya worked as an assistant technical officer at Madhav University, Pindwara in Sirohi district from 2015 to 2020, and included that experience certificate among his qualifications, the SOG said.

The agency is now probing through which university employees or middlemen the fake degree was procured and how much money was paid for it. The accused’s B.Tech and other degrees are also being verified, police said.