This is how DU plans to curb fake admissions
In a bid to curb fake admissions based on fraudulent documents, Delhi University (DU) wants its affiliated colleges to employ the help of forensic services. While fake admissions have been going for a while, the issue became a point of concern recently when it was found that former DUSU president Ankiv Baisoya had received admission based on fraudulent documents. Here are the details.
In September last year, Baisoya of RSS-affiliated Akhil Bhartiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) was elected as the president of the Delhi University Students' Union (DUSU). Shortly afterwards, the Congress-backed National Students' Union of India (NSUI) alleged that Baisoya had falsified his undergraduate marksheets to gain admission to the MA Buddhist Studies program of DU.
Subsequently, in November, Baisoya resigned as pressure mounted, and he was also removed from the DU for falsifying documents. However, the entire episode with Baisoya raised fresh concerns about fake admissions to the university, and the need to stop admissions based on fraudulent documents became an important agenda for DU.
In this backdrop, DU's admission committee held its first meeting for the 2019-2020 session on Tuesday, where the proposal to enlist the help of forensic services came up. Interestingly, the need to use forensic services was discussed last year as well, and some DU-affiliated colleges like Ramjas, Sri Venkateswara, and Dyal Singh have been using such services for years. However, no decision on the mandatory use of forensic services have been taken yet.
"There has been no formal decision or discussion on this issue. A meeting with college principals will be convened to discuss the possibilities and find out how many will be willing to go through with this," an official told IE.
The use of forensic services apart, reducing the number of documents required for admission was also discussed. It was decided that starting this year, transfer, migration, and character certificates from the applicants' schools would not be required for admission to DU. Further, a mechanism to allow applicants to make corrections in admission forms after submitting them was also discussed.
"In a lot of cases, the applicant is dependent on a third party to fill out their form...They should not have to suffer for a casual mistake. We will try to rectify this by developing a portal for online corrections," said Rajeev Gupta, Dean, Students' Welfare.
