Mumbai: In a shocking incident, the Maharashtra Medical Council has busted a clutch of 57 doctors who submitted fake Post Graduation degrees – all procured in the name of the same medical college – in order to get registration from the council.
The council has revoked the practicing license of all the doctors and an FIR was also filed in October 2018. Interestingly, all the doctors yielded degrees of the College of Physicians & Surgeons (CPS) in Mumbai and were from the same batch of 2014-15.
The police said a former student of CPS has been arrested in the case for extorting money from students and giving them fake college degrees in return.
Investigations revealed that the accused, Dr Snehal Nyati, took money to the tune of Rs 3-5 lakh from every student on the pretext of providing a medical certification from the college. He further assured the students of a degree even if they failed their exams, the police added.
Several of these students had been registered with the MMC, which allowed them to practice medicine in the state of Maharashtra, on the basis of these fake degrees.
The scam first came to light in 2016, when the CPS received a letter from a police station in Maharashtra's Jalgaon district, asking the college to verify a degree of a student. Cogwheels began to turn soon after, as the college in turn informed the police that the certificate concerned is fake and has not been issued by them.
The police then wrote to the MMC intimating them about the fake certificate and further directed the council to verify the degrees of all the students registered for the year. After an internal probe, it was revealed that 78 of the applications received for the year 2014 and 2015 were fake.
MMC in its defense said that all the certificates appeared to be original, which is why it went ahead and issued license to the doctors, adding that they did not have the “expertise" to investigate.
"From where the certificates have come that cannot be investigated by us. We don't have the expertise to investigate this. So we have asked the police to carry out necessary investigations and find out from where these students procured the certificates," it said.
On the other hand, CPS maintained that the certificates did not appear to be original and there is a lot of difference between the original and fake certificates.
Meanwhile, the accused doctor has alleged that he is becoming the victim of a larger conspiracy at play, which has been orchestrated by the top brass of the college itself.
A statement of Dr Nyati, recorded by the MMC, reads, “Dr Snehal Nyati stated that he has been unnecessarily framed in this alleged CPS degree scandal. He has been made a scapegoat by the CPS committee just to protect the chair and position of the current CPS President Dr Girish Mainderkar and his team members."
However, President of CPS, Dr Girish Mainderkar, has denied these allegations and said that it was the responsibility of the MMC to verify every certificate with the college before issuing licenses. "They have to cross check before they get students enrolled as a specialist doctor in the field. We don't know how these students got registered," he said.
While the CPS and the MMC are embroiled in a blame-game over the scam, the doctors who are now on the radar, are pointing fingers at both the institutions for ruining their careers.
All in all, till date 78 such doctors have been identified who submitted fake degree certificates to get themselves registered with the MMC and get license to practice. These doctors practiced for around three-four years before they were identified.
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