Going by the number of certificates being returned by various colleges, universities and the Regional Passport Office, it seems that faking a certificate or forging signatures have reached startling heights. Complaints by the University were lodged on Sept 17 with the Egmore Police Station and Inspector General of Police (Crime Branch) as it was suspected that an inter-state racket was in operation.

Consider these bloomers for instance: T Annakkili of Tiruvallur District applied for masters degree in political science in the Institute of Correspondence Education (ICE).

The provisional certificate and statement of marks of the candidate was found out to be fake. The provisional certificate for the B.Sc. degree has a vaguely printed University insignia, signed by Assistant Registrar K Selvaraj, who the officialsclaim, is not the person in authority in the Certificate Section.

Controller of Examinations A Sivamurthy says the mark statements and a forged facsimile of his signature has a number of other glaring aberrations.

The candidate who has actually scored 07 marks in Inorganic, Organic and Physical Chemistry had changed it to 47. Having got her transfer certificate from the Quaid-e-Millat Government College for Women, the copy of the student's provisional certificate was sent to the university for verification as her register number and name was not found in the September 1997 register.

Pointing out major anomalies in a similar certificate of R Devarajan, the Controller says, the `(Re-structured Pattern)' inscribed on the mark sheet was not mentioned for the 1990-91 batch. While original certificates just said `Month & Year' for that particular batch of mark statements, the statements record it as `Month and Year'.

Says Dr Varadarajan of Madras Christian College: ``A student got a B.A degree certificatefrom the university on the basis of a fake marksheet from MCC. He wrote the supplementary exam in MCC in 1995 and failed in eight papers, but managed to get his degree in 1994 itself. What's worse, he even went on to get his M.A in 1996.''

In yet another case of forged B.A mark sheets, in P Binu Premkumar's statements, the Controller of Examinations' name Sivamurthy in its signed form reads like `Sundaramurthy', a clear case of `bad' forgery.

The Controller sees a pattern in the fake certificates of R Pugazhendhi and Annakkili where the brown line boxing the marks is frayed at the same point, the way `Enrollment' is misspelt, the typed name and forged facsimile rubber stamp of the Controller, the somewhat elongated rubber stamp of the University of Madras.

In contrast to the neatly-prepared Madras University degree certificates is that of Vinod K of B.Sc. (Mathematics), whose certificate bears the semblance of the signature of Vice Chancellor S Sathik which reads like S. Sathivel and has the rubberstamp of the Registrar's, where there should be the original signature.

The fake certificates are printed in letterpress rather than the more costly offset method of printing done for original University documents.

Interestingly, forged mark sheets of J Petric Napolien were returned by the Regional Passport Office.

According to Sivamurthy some agents get fake certificates for a lump sum as graduates are exempted from emigrant status.

With more reports of duplicate certificates, Vice Chancellor P T Manoharan says special precautions have been taken to stop reproduction of certificates. The next batch of certificates will have high resolution borders that cannot be imitated. They will contain the water print of the University emblem, facsimile of the Vice Chancellor's signature and signature of the Registrar or Controller of Examinations for Post Graduate and Under Graduate degree certificates respectively. The University proposes to maintain confidentiality of printing on the lines of the Reserve Bankof India.