A police team from Kendrapada on Friday seized original certificates of 55 students from three centres of Andhra Pradesh pertaining to a cheating on BEd degree. The students had taken admission in BEd course through Kendrapara–based Odisha Distance College of Education (ODCE) and had gone to Andhra Pradesh for appearing the examination. However, they were not allowed to take up their examination by the concerned centres.
According to Kendrapara SP Rabi Narayan Behera, the certificates were seized from the examination centres of Raghabendra College of Education, Masters College of Education and GMR College.
The original certificates of the students are going to be handed over to the students after thorough verification on Sunday at Kendrapara Town police station. The police have already contacted the students, he said.
As many as 73 students, who got admission in Andhra Open University BEd course through the ODCE earlier had filed a complaint with the district police that they were harassed by the Andhra centres and deprived of taking the examination for not receiving the course fee.
They said that they had paid the course fee in full to the ODCE but the latter had not made the remittances to the examination centres. The aggrieved students had also approached at the CM grievance cell for justice.
Notably, the head of the ODCE had allegedly collected `81,500, including `65,000 as course fee, along with all the original documents from each student.
IG (CR) RP Koche had been directed by the State Government to take prompt action. Koche on Wednesday last had paid a visit to Kendrapara to review the action taken by the police.
He directed the district police to take prompt action to arrest the head of ODCE and his associates in the scam. He also had directed for recovery of the original certificates of the students.