Patiala college files complaint against portal for stealing data

PUNJABI UNIVERSITY MANAGEMENT TOO HAS DECIDED TO TAKE LEGAL ACTION AGAINST THE WEBSITE FOR ALLEGED WRONG PRACTICES

PATIALA: A complaint has been lodged with the cyber crime cell of Punjab Police against a web portal that claims to be facilitating college and university admissions. In his complaint, Patialabased MM College’s principal has accused the portal managers of stealing data of public universities and their aided colleges, and then coaxing aspirants to take admissions in some private universities.

Following complaints from its colleges and school of management studies, the Punjabi University management too has decided to take legal action against the website — collegedunia.com — for the alleged wrong practices.

“The web portal is working on the behalf of some private universities and luring aspirants on the pretext of easy admissions and placements. We will take legal action,” said Punjabi University vice-chancellor Prof BS Ghuman.

It is learnt that after a student registers and enquires about admission in a government university or an affiliated or aided college on the portal, he or she gets a registration confirmation message from a private varsity.

“Not only our college but other government-aided colleges are facing the same problem,” said MM College principal Khushvinder Kumar, who is the president of the association of principals of aided colleges.

Though there was no response to repeated calls and emails sent to the website, Twitter handle — @college_dunia — of the portal said: “There might be a confusion and we haven’t received the complaint so far. We can comment only if we see the content of the complaint. Collegedunia uses data from the public domain.”

Cyber cell deputy superintendent of police Chiranjiv Lamba confirmed that they have received a complaint. “A sub-inspector rank officer has been directed to investigate. Further action will be taken as per the law,” he said.