College admin cancels ‘fraud’ admissions of 50 students; Mumbai police forms SIT

Meanwhile, the Mumbai police have formed a five-member Special Investigation Team to thoroughly investigate the matter.

On Monday, the Tilak Nagar police arrested three people, including two staff members of Vidyahar-based colleges of the Somaiya Trust, who were allegedly involved in fraudulently facilitating seats for 50 students for class 11.

The admission fraud was detected in three colleges: K J Somaiya College of Arts and Commerce, K J Somaiya College of Science and Commerce, and S K Somaiya Vinay Mandir Junior College.

The scam came to light during the verification of mark sheets and school-leaving certificates for Class 11 admissions for 2024-25. After finding certain irregularities, a scrutiny committee was formed by Dr Kishan Pawar, the principal of KJ Somaiya College of Arts and Commerce, that examined the documents and found that bogus documents were used in securing admissions.

ACP to head SIT

Senior officers from Mumbai police, considering the seriousness of the matter, have ordered the formation of a five-member Special Investigation Team headed by an ACP rank officer to thoroughly investigate the matter.

Confirming the development, Mahesh Patil, Additional Commissioner of Police, said, “There is a possibility that the accused persons may have been running the admission racket in the past. An SIT will look into this aspect as well.”

When asked if the 50 students and their parents will also face legal action, the senior police officer said that it would be too early to comment on it.

“We would start recording the statement of the parents soon, and depending upon what transpired in the investigation, we will take a call after due legal consultation regarding action to be taken against the parents. As per the college’s complaint, parents were told by the accused that they were giving admissions to their kids under the ‘management quota’,” Patil said.

The three accused, Mahendra Vishnu Patil, 49; Arjun Vasaram Rathod, 43; and Devendra Sayade, 55, who were arrested by the Tilak Nagar police were remanded in four-days police custody by a court on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, in a statement issued on Wednesday, Deputy Director of Education, Mumbai, Sandeep Sangave, stated that officials from his office paid a visit to the three colleges soon after receiving a complaint.

“It was found that certain staff members of the college had facilitated these admissions based on fake documents . Immediately after our initial probe, all three junior colleges were instructed to cancel the admissions and submit a formal complaint with the police for investigation and action,” Sangave said in his statement.

Principals of all three colleges had informed the office of the Deputy Director of Education in Mumbai on October 24 about the irregularities in First Year Junior College (or class 11) admissions conducted for 2024-25, which concluded in September 2024.

In November, the office of Deputy Director of Education conducted their probe of verification, and by the end of the month, the colleges were instructed to cancel all these admissions.

Sangave added that he also informed higher authorities —the Director of Education—regarding the racket.

Questions raised on online admissions

The FYJC admissions, which are a centralised online admission process to ensure transparency, are conducted by the office of the Director of Education in five districts of Maharashtra.

Deputy Directors are further given responsibility to run the system for their respective districts. System Correcting Movement (SYSCOM), a parent organisation from Pune, has raised questions on the system.

Chairperson of SYSCOM, Vaishali Bafna, said, “SYSCOM has been raising concerns against irregularities in FYJC admissions for a while now. It is run online to ensure transparency, but document verification is not done online. There are designated centers for document verification. A more probing question is to know how these documents were verified. Additionally, there is no control on how quota (management, minority) admissions are conducted by colleges on their own.”

Sangave, however, said that the online admission process provides a system where students have to register with their details, and colleges are allotted to them based on merit.