A single mistake in a marksheet isn’t unheard of, but several of them — year of passing, errors in parents’ names and stream — has left a student fuming. Officials said that although minor mistakes are excusable, so many are suspicious and may tell a totally different story.
Swati Gharat passed the Bachelor of Arts degree course from the University of Mumbai in October 2001, but got her degree certificate after clearing the ATKT of the first and second year only recently. However, she was surprised to see that the certificate mentioned the year of passing as March 2006. She was further taken aback when the other details mentioned on the certificate in the English print mentioned her stream of passing correctly, but the Marathi print showed that she had passed in the Science stream.
“To add insult to injury, they wrongly mentioned the names of my parents also,” Ms Gharat alleged. While the English print on the certificate mentions the correct name Gharat Swati Motiram Jayshree, the Marathi print mentions the father’s name as Manohar and mothers name as Suman.
Former senate member Vaibhav Narwade, who was approached by Ms Gharat to help solve the issue, said, “If the examination section makes such glaring mistakes, all students will have to check their certificates. Also, as the University issues the certificates six months after applying for them, she will have to now spend another three months before the mistakes are rectified. Are the students expected to keep running to the University to ensure that their certificates are printed correctly? If the controller of examinations (CoE) cannot ensure that such mistakes do not occur, he should resign,” Mr Narawade said.
When this newspaper, which has copies of Ms Gharat’s degree certificate, spoke to Prof. Vilas Shinde, CoE, MU, he said that as he was yet to see the documents, he would not be able to comment. He admitted that there could be some minor typographical mistakes, but such glaring mistakes need to be investigated.
“Students sometimes
want the names of their guardians changed due to either multiple parents or due to property issues. I will scrutinise the case personally, and find out how the differences occurred in the English and Marathi print,” said Prof. Shinde.