P. Rasheed Ahammed, United Democratic Front-aligned Syndicate member of the University of Calicut, has alleged that outside agencies had forged challan receipts for the payment made for admission of students to the School of Distance Education and duped the university of lakhs of rupees.
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He released documents to prove this during the special Syndicate meeting on Tuesday. Mr. Ahammed alleged that the forgery had occurred during the admission process from 2018. He said though people from outside the university were earlier involved in this, later university staff too became part of the process.
The meeting decided to set up an inquiry committee led by M.M. Narayanan to find out if there had been any irregularities and if the university had incurred any losses.
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The allegations are against the backdrop of suspension of two Pareeksha Bhavan staff on bribery charges recently. The modus operandi was to accept a copy of the computer-made challan receipt of the university along with payment for various applications instead of accepting payments through online bank transactions. The university does not have a system to cross-check with the bank if the payments had reached its account.
Mr. Ahammed said while seeking admissions to SDE courses, each student was supposed to remit ₹3,000 as fee. Some agencies were found to collect it from many students with a promise to pay the amount to the university along with the challan and applications. However, the full amounts would not be paid to the university and forged challan were submitted. This was found by sheer accident in 2018. Though the then vice chancellor had set up an inquiry panel for this, after he demitted office, the investigation also stopped, he said.
Mr. Ahammed alleged that the university was found to be using a software that did not connect the application forms and challans and the payments. It was the main reason that made the forgery possible. Though it was found in 2018 itself, precautions were not taken, he alleged.