Former Visva Bharati V-C, Registrar among 3 convicted for cheating and forgery

Kolkata: The Bolpur Court on Wednesday convicted former Vice-Chancellor (V-C) of Visva Bharati Dilip Sinha, former Registrar Dilip Mukherjee and a former faculty member on charges of cheating, forgery and conspiracy.

"The quantum of punishment will be announced by the Magistrate Arvind Mishra on Thursday," said Naba Kumar Ghosh, special public prosecutor for the Criminal Investigation Department (CID).

Sinha served as the V-C of Visva Bharati between 1995 and 2001. On January 16, 1997, Mukti Deb, an applicant for the post of Mathematics lecturer, was interviewed. She had furnished certificates of BSc from Calcutta University and MSc and MPhil from Jadavpur University, which were later found to be forged.

During investigation, it was revealed that Deb had appeared for the Part-1 exam of BSc but failed in it. But during the interview, she had produced photocopies instead of original testimonials and also got the job. The copies of the testimonials were attested by Dilip Sinha.

After Deb was recruited as a lecturer in Mathematics, she worked for five years there. After five years, Deb wrote to the university authorities, seeking permission for enrolling in PhD. When she was asked to submit the original documents, instead of furnishing them Deb stated that she is not interested in pursuing PhD.

During May 2004, Sunil Kumar Sarkar, former Registrar of the university, had lodged a complaint with Bolpur police station. The former state government led by then chief

minister Buddahdeb Bhattacharjee had ordered a CID probe. Deb had taught the students of Visva Bharati for seven years before she was sacked in 2004.

Sinha was arrested by the CID in June 2004 from his residence. After a year spent in judicial custody, he was granted bail during March 2005. Later, CID submitted the chargesheet against Sinha, Mukherjee and Deb at Bolpur Court, on charges of forgery, cheating and conspiracy.