"It is a matter of serious concern that degrees and certificates issued in the name of the university were found fake," Magadh University examination controller Sushil Kumar Singh said.

A team of Vijayawada police arrived in Gaya, about 110 km from here, for verification of degrees and certificates after suspecting some wrongdoing. The documents were used by some people to procure jobs in Andhra Pradesh.

"Vijayawada police seized these degrees and certificates after a complaint filed by a local man," Singh said.

Singh said inscriptions on fake degrees did not match the university examination department records, and the signatures of officials on these degrees, including that of the vice chancellor, were not genuine.

"It was also revealed during an investigation that degrees issued on different dates carried the wrong names of university officials," he said.

Taking serious note, the university plans to make its degrees imitation proof by putting the scanned photograph of the examinee on all its degrees.

Singh said the university has already come up with a new format for its degrees, designed on chrome-art paper with bar codes, to minimise the chances of being forged.

Fake degrees are frequently found in Bihar, with police busting several such rackets in the last few years.

Only two years ago, the Bihar government rejected more than four million applications to check a fake degree racket and other irregularities during a teacher recruitment drive for government-run schools.

About 9,000 recruitment centres across the state had received more than 10 million applications for 93,000 teaching posts in the second phase of recruitment in 2009. Later, the government sacked 15,000 teachers for submitting fake degrees and certificates. The sacked teachers had been appointed as part of the first phase of a recruitment drive in 2008.

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