 Yesterday somebody consulted me regarding taking legal, civil or criminal action against an employee who had represented, rather misrepresented about a qualification in his resume. At the time he applied for the job. The qualification which he had mentioned in the resume was born out of a fake degree. So beware of fake degrees and diplomas. Dealing with or getting fake degrees or diplomas are serious criminal offences apart from exposing one to huge damages and social stigma apart. Keep watching this video ahead to get more awareness about this issue and subject. Have you heard of a degree or diploma mill? Well, it is a company or organization which claims to be a higher education institution but provides illegitimate and illegal academic degrees and diplomas for a fee or one time huge price. These institutions are not empowered under section 22 of the University Grants Commissions Act. Do you know that section 22 in the University Grants Commission Act 1956 strictly prohibits, restricts any person or authority from conferring or granting any degree unless it is a university established or incorporated by or under the Central Act or State Act or is an institution deemed to be a university or an institution specially empowered by an act of parliament to confer or grant such degrees. In order to add an appearance of authenticity these degree selling fraud companies may also claim to appraise work, history or require submission of a thesis or dissertation for evaluation to give degrees or diplomas even doctorates for that matter. A degree mill and diploma mill sometimes also issue counterfeit degrees and diplomas bearing the names of real universities and sometimes they even issue genuine degrees but in an illegal manner. This is another side of story where one could buy degrees and diplomas of valid and lawfully set up universities and institutions in India and elsewhere. In the latter part of last year an exclusive investigation carried out by one of the leading electronic and media digital media channel in India uncovered the dark side of educational institutions where degrees are on sale. A team of under cover reporters approached some agents who claimed that they would provide educational degrees without the person to have to attend classes or even appearing for examination. According to the agents the entire process was to take 45 days with scanned copies of the educational degrees to be made available in 30 days and the original hard copies to come in another 10 to 15 days. The degrees in engineering, LLB and even PhD from different universities were supposedly available for sale for how much price? For a price tag between Rs 75,000 to 2 lakh rupees. The Ministry of Human Resource Development took immediate cognizance last year of the investigation and directed the UGC, University Grants Commission to immediately constitute a high level committee to inquire into the allegations. I have not been able to lay my hands on the outcome of that investigation as yet based on my research. Many candidates believe that the issuance of fake degrees is an offence committed only by the issuer institution. That is a wrong understanding. Getting these fake degrees is a serious criminal offence and can lead to the prosecution of the candidate as well because legal issues can arise if the qualification is used in resumes for getting jobs, licenses and contracts and other benefits, favors. Those who possess such fake degrees could be charged under section 420 which is cheating, 467 which is forgery of valuable security, section 468 of IPC, forgery of cheating, 471 which is using a genuine forged document and then abetment of criminal conspiracy and so on and so forth. There are several provisions under the Indian Penal Code under which one could be prosecuted and even face imprisonment up to 7 years and as I mentioned damages apart and social stigma as well goes along. Well, that's all for today. I will come again with another video at Mentor Talk. Until then, stay safe and good luck.