Background: why this RTI was filed
Most reporting on education fraud looks for the dishonest institution. Sometimes the institution is the one telling the truth, and the fraud is being committed in its name by people it has never met. Meghalaya's private universities have long attracted that kind of parasitic activity: an established name, a distant state, a registrar's office that most employers will never telephone.
The practical question for anyone screening a candidate is simple and unglamorous. Does the enrolment number on this certificate exist in the university's records? A forger can reproduce a seal, a signature, a watermark and a convincing serial format. What a forger cannot do is insert a row into the university's student register.
These six replies were obtained to test exactly that, across a spread of years and applicants. The earliest is dated 25 February 2022 and answers an RTI of 12 February 2021. Four more were issued on a single day, 26 July 2022, in response to a verification letter of 6 July 2022 sent by a background screening company in Bengaluru. The most recent, reference File No 1-100/WCU-R.T.I/2012-2075, is dated 10 May 2024 and answers an RTI application of 22 April 2024 filed by Kamesh.
| Documents | Six PIO replies under the RTI Act, 2005 and under verification correspondence |
| References | 1-100/WCU-R.T.I/2012-475, -714, -715, -716, -719 and -2075 |
| Dates | 25.02.2022; 26.07.2022 (four replies); 10.05.2024 |
| Issued by | Public Information Officer, William Carey University, Meghalaya |
| PIO named | Dr. Baiaphira G. Lyngskor (five of six replies) |
| Addressees | A Bengaluru verification company (four), an individual applicant (one), Kamesh (one) |
| Pages | 6 |
The same three sentences, six times
The replies are short, and their brevity is the point. Each opens with the same formula — “In response to your RTI application, I am submitting herewith the following information” — and then delivers a numbered verdict.
Point one: there was no student in the university by the name presented. Point two: “The University has no records of the mentioned enrollment numbers.” Point three: “The mentioned name/names and enrollment number/numbers are fake and fictitious.”
The reply of 10 May 2024 adds a fourth point at the top, and it is the broadest statement in the set: “There are no records of any such students mentioned in your letter.” That phrasing suggests the letter put more than one candidate to the university, and that none of them matched.
There is no hedging anywhere in these documents. The university does not say the records could not be located, or that the enquiry was outside the RTI Act, or that a fee was payable. It says the credentials do not exist.
Who was asking, and why it matters
The addressees tell their own story. Four of the six replies — references -714, -715, -716 and -719, all issued on 26 July 2022 — are addressed to a verification analyst at VHR Verification Company in Bengaluru, and all four respond to the same verification letter dated 6 July 2022. A single screening exercise, in other words, produced four separate forged credentials in this one university's name.
That detail matters more than any individual case. It means the documents were not curiosities discovered by an investigator hunting for them; they were surfacing in the ordinary course of pre-employment background checks, presented by candidates applying for jobs.
The fifth reply, of 25 February 2022, is addressed to a private individual in Bangalore — who is also the person named in the body of the reply. The sixth, of 10 May 2024, is addressed to Kamesh.
What the university offers instead
Every one of the six replies closes with the same footnote: “refer to www.williamcareyuniversity.ac.in for the list of genuine of students/scholars of William Carey University, Meghalaya.”
This is a constructive detail worth recording. The university is not merely rejecting forgeries after the fact; it publishes a list against which any employer can check a claim before the trouble starts. Its letterheads also carry the registrar's direct email and two telephone numbers.
It is also a reminder of where the burden sits. A certificate is a claim, not a proof. The proof is the university's record, and in each of these six cases the record was empty.
Key findings
Six replies, identical conclusion
Across 25.02.2022, four replies of 26.07.2022 and one of 10.05.2024, the university reached the same conclusion each time: the presented credentials are “fake and fictitious”.
No enrolment record for any number presented
Every reply states the university “has no records of the mentioned enrollment numbers”. The numbers do not correspond to anything in its system.
No student of that name
In each reply the university states there was no student by the name presented to it.
Commercial screening requests answered the same way
Four of the six replies answer a verification analyst at a Bengaluru screening company. The forged credentials were therefore surfacing in ordinary pre-employment background checks.
A pattern sustained over more than two years
The earliest reply on record is dated 25.02.2022 and the latest 10.05.2024, indicating documents in the university's name continued to circulate across that period.
The university publishes a genuine-student list
Every reply carries the same footnote directing readers to the university's website for the list of genuine students and scholars — a verification route the university itself offers.
“The mentioned name/names and enrollment number/numbers are fake and fictitious.”
— William Carey University, Meghalaya — Public Information Officer, in all six replies on record
What employers and students should know
Employers and screening agencies should take from this that a certificate bearing a Meghalaya university's name carries no weight until the enrolment number has been checked with the registrar. Four forged credentials surfaced in a single screening exercise in July 2022. The university answers verification correspondence — one of these replies came back within three weeks of the request — and publishes a genuine-student list. There is no good reason to accept a photocopy instead.
Genuine graduates of William Carey University are the people most damaged by this. Every forged certificate circulating in the university's name makes an honest graduate's certificate harder to believe. Keep your enrolment number, your marksheets and any verification letter the university has issued, and expect to be asked.
Anyone who has been offered a degree from this or any university without attending it should understand what these documents establish: the enrolment number will not be in the register, and the first competent background check will find that out. The certificate does not become real because money changed hands for it.
- Employers: send verification requests to registrar@williamcareyuniversity.ac.in or the telephone numbers printed on the university letterhead, quoting the enrolment number.
- Employers: check the candidate against the genuine-student list the university publishes on williamcareyuniversity.ac.in before making an offer.
- Graduates: obtain a written verification letter from the university and keep it with your certificates.
- Anyone who bought a certificate from an agent: preserve the receipts, advertisements and contact details of the agent — they are evidence against the supplier.
- If you hold a forged document, take legal advice before presenting it anywhere; presenting a forged certificate is a criminal offence in India, quite apart from the loss of employment.
What this record shows:
- William Carey University, Meghalaya, stated in six separate replies between 25.02.2022 and 10.05.2024 that the student names put to it were never enrolled and that it holds no record of the enrolment numbers presented.
- In each reply the university describes the names and enrolment numbers as “fake and fictitious”.
- Four of the replies were issued to a commercial verification company, indicating the documents were encountered during employment screening.
- The university directs enquirers to its own website for the list of genuine students and scholars.
What it does not show:
- It does not show any wrongdoing by William Carey University. The university is the authority that identified the documents as forgeries.
- It does not establish who created or supplied the forged documents, or whether the individuals named knew the credentials were false.
- It does not name this page's subjects: the six individuals identified in the replies are deliberately not named here.
- It does not indicate how many forged documents exist in total — only that six were checked and none matched a record.
- It does not report the outcome of any police complaint, prosecution or disciplinary action.
Every statement on this page is drawn from the official document described above. Readers should rely on the original document and the issuing authority for any decision.