A 25-year-old man from Vadodara, who never attended college, was shocked to discover he had been admitted to an engineering diploma course and that a scholarship had been obtained in his name without his knowledge. This was stated in a report by the Times of India. 

The youth, Pratikkumar Parmar, a resident of Ghayaj village in Padra taluka of Vadodara district, stumbled upon the scam in March 2023 when he approached the social welfare department to apply for a scholarship.  

Parmar, who failed his Class XII exams in 2017 and later worked as an insurance agent, reappeared for the exams in 2022-23. He passed and secured admission to a Bachelor of Arts (BA) degree course at a college in Varnama near Vadodara. While applying for a scholarship for his BA studies, officials informed him that a scholarship had already been claimed in his name.  

Parmar learned that he was falsely shown as a student of the FD (Mubin) Institute of Engineering in Bahiyal village, Dehgam taluka, Gandhinagar district. Through RTI applications, he discovered that a bank account was opened in his name at the Ladi Nagarik Sahakari Bank's CTM branch in Ahmedabad, where the scholarship amount was deposited.  

“After struggling for over a year to get this offence registered, the FIR was finally lodged on Thursday after I approached the Swagat Online programme of the chief minister,” Parmar told TOI.  

The Gandhinagar Sector 7 police have registered a complaint against unidentified persons under Indian Penal Code (IPC) sections 420 (cheating), 465 (forgery), 471 (using forged documents), and 468 (forgery for cheating).

Parmar suspects this could be part of a larger scam. “There may be others, and this may be a bigger issue. I want it to be investigated thoroughly,” he said.