Kasaragod: K Vidya -- accused of forging teaching experience certificates -- has admitted that she made the documents to land a job, said Nileshwar police.
Vidya, a former Students' Federation of India (SFI) leader, appeared before Nileshwar police and gave her statement on Tuesday. "She said she did it for a job," said Nileshwar Station House Officer Inspector Premsadan K.
She had allegedly submitted two experience certificates to Government Arts and Science College at Kasaragod's Karinthalam, saying she was a Malayalam guest lecturer at Kochi's Maharaja’s College in 2018-2019 and 2020-2021.
The experience certificates helped her get the job as a guest lecturer at Karinthalam college. She taught there from June 2022 to March 2023.
Later, Vidya allegedly submitted the same forged experience certificates from Maharaja's College at Rajiv Gandhi Memorial Government College at Palakkad's Attapadi this year. But the Attappadi college sent the certificates for verification and Maharaja's College wrote back saying they were forged. Maharaja's College had not hired a guest lecturer for nearly 10 years.
When this became public, Karinthalam college also wrote to Maharaja's College to scrutinise Vidya's experience certificate submitted in 2022.
Based on the reply from Maharaja's College, Karinthalam college principal-in-charge Jaison V Joseph filed a complaint against Vidya with Nileshwar Police. Similarly, Attappadi College also filed a case with Agali Police Station in Palakkad, and Maharaja's College filed a complaint with Kochi Central Police Station.
The three police charged her with forgery, forgery for the purpose of cheating, and using forged documents as genuine.
After the three Police Stations registered three FIRs against her, Vidya, an alumnus of Maharaja's College, went incommunicado. "She appeared before Nileshwar police on Tuesday after we served her a notice," said Inspector Premsadan.
She reportedly told Nileshwar police on Tuesday that most of the candidates for guest lecturers had the same qualifications and only teaching experiences distinguished one from another. "She told us that she forged the experience certificate when she was staying as a paying guest in Kochi," the officer said. No one else was involved in forging the certificates, she said.
The police, however, said the confessional statement did not have any evidentiary value in court. "We are building up the case by collecting evidence from the colleges and statements of the principals and vice-principals," said another investigating officer. Agali police had also collected evidence from her mobile phone.
Premsadan said the police on Tuesday collected samples of Vidya's signature and handwriting to compare with the documents she submitted to the colleges for the jobs. "The experience certificates were self-attested," he said.
After recording the statement, Nileshwar police produced Vidya before the Court of Judicial Magistrate of First Class - II in Hosdurg. The court granted her interim bail and asked her to appear before the investigating officer on Wednesday and Thursday (June 28 and 29). The court will take up the bail plea on June 30.
