Law Student Makes Fake Ministry Website, Dupes 4,000 Job Aspirants

LLM student had created a website that looked like a central government portal, calling for job applications.

The fake website of the Ministry of Women and Child Development

(Photo: The Quint )

A law student, studying in Delhi university, created a website that carried the emblem of an official government ministry site, managing to cheat more than 4,000 job applicants of Rs 20 lakh, reported Hindustan Times.

The Delhi police said that Sumit Kumar, the law student, was arrested on 19 November, Saturday, after a complaint from an undersecretary in the Ministry of Women and Child Development.

The complaint stated that an uncertified person or body had set up a fake website resembling MWCD’s official website.

Fake website attempting to imitate the Ministry of Women and Child Development

In an attempt to confuse applicants as well as ministry officials, the domain name of Sumit Kumar's site “wcdo.org.in”, appeared similar to ministry of women and child development's official site, “wcd.nic.in”.

According to the report, the government’s helpline numbers for women and children were also included.

After questioning 27-year-old Kumar, the investigator said the law student expected at least one lakh aspirants to apply for jobs through his website.

According to DCP BK Singh, Sumit had advertised about 6,715 vacancies, and was collecting examination fee online by offering jobs for multiple posts. The fee for most of the jobs was Rs 800 and to make the web portal appear authentic, the fee structure for the SC and ST categories was halved.

The newspaper reported that on closer examination, it revealed that the website was registered to an NGO and the payments were deposited in an ICICI account, which helped the police zero in on the suspect. 

Kumar reportedly told police that he had set up the NGO by getting it registered with the sub-registrar in Delhi, in March.

He added that later on, a web-designer helped to create the website as per the requirements and the ministry’s logo was added to make it seem genuine.

Initially he tried to mislead us, but admitted on interrogation. He had only started advertising the vacancies a few days back. Sumit Kumar’s organisation ran no school where he could fill up the said vacancies. He was doing this only to earn money.

BK Singh, Deputy Commissioner

The police are currently searching for three other suspects – the designer who helped set up the website and two others who allegedly set up the NGO.

(With inputs from Hindustan Times)

(Breathe In, Breathe Out: Are you finding it tough to breathe polluted air? Join hands with FIT in partnership with #MyRightToBreathe to find a solution to pollution. Send in your suggestions to [e-mail] or WhatsApp @ [phone])