Madan Mandal, 45, was on the hunt for what he called a “respectable job”. A resident of Shahbad Dairy in northwest Delhi, he wanted to start his own shop, and felt that operating a pharmacy was a decent option.
There was just one problem — Mandal hadn’t even matriculated from school, let alone earned a pharmacy diploma, which made getting a pharmacy registration certificate — mandatory to operate a chemist shop — impossible.
Well, nearly impossible.
Mandal chose to get his registration through another route — he paid a tout ₹4 lakh for a “package deal”. Within days, he received fake matriculation and diploma certificates. Two and a half months later, the Delhi Pharmacy Council (DPC) issued him a registration number. With that, he began illegally operating a pharmacy in Tikri, according to investigators that worked the case.
Mandal is one of thousands fraudulently running pharmacies across the country — a racket that came under the scanner on April 2, when Delhi’s Anti-Corruption Branch (ACB) arrested 48 people, including former DPC registrar Kuldeep Singh, as part of a widening investigation into fake pharmacy registrations.
Among those arrested by the ACB team headed by ACP Jarnail Singh were Sanjay Kumar, a tout from Narela, and Imlakh Khan, principal of the Baba Institute of Pharmacy in Muzaffarnagar, Uttar Pradesh. “We have arrested 35 fake pharmacists in Delhi and expect more arrests,” said Madhur Verma, joint commissioner of police, ACB.
Doctor Sunil Singhal, senior vice-president of the Delhi Medical Association, warned of the grave risks. “Unqualified people selling medicines could lead to spurious or dangerously wrong combinations being dispensed, especially when patients rely directly on chemists rather than doctors,” he said.
How the racket worked
According to the procedure laid out by DPC to grant a registration certificate, the council verifies documents submitted by pharmacy applicants by emailing their college for confirmation. If verified by this email, the registrar conducts a short interview before issuing a registration.
This verification system was exploited by Kumar and his associates.
When approached by aspiring pharmacists, Kumar arranged a string of fraudulent certificates — including Class 10 and 12 results, a pharmacy diploma, and a practical training certificate claiming 500 hours of fieldwork.
“Sanjay would go to a printer in Rohini to create the documents and list fake college details,” said an ACP-rank officer. The cost for the entire package was ₹4 lakh — ₹1.5 lakh of which allegedly went to the registrar, with the rest split among others.
Once the forged documents were printed, they were uploaded to the DPC website for registration. “The applicants never even saw their fake certificates,” the officer said.
Kumar then bribed college officials — including Khan, the principal of Baba Institute — to send fake verification emails to DPC. “He paid Khan around ₹50,000 to verify documents for at least three applicants,” the ACP-rank officer added.
After the verification email was received, applicants would appear before registrar Kuldeep Singh for a brief interview — often involving basic questions such as the chemical formula of salt or water.
“Sanjay would bring the applicants to Kuldeep Singh’s office where he asked them the most basic questions — like the chemical formula of salt or water,” the second officer said.
Within days, they received their registration certificates.
The demand for such certificates, the officer cited above said, was driven by genuine pharmacists employing unlicensed assistants, who eventually sought to set up their own shops. “These men learn the trade on the job but do not have a degree. In such cases, touts target such men and lure them with the offer that they could run their own pharmacy and make more money. They told the men that they didn’t have to worry about the certificates but just pay ₹4 lakh and get a registration certificate,” the ACP said.
How the racket was uncovered
The scam surfaced in January 2023, when a Delhi health department official filed a complaint against Kuldeep Singh, alleging he had issued certificates to three people based on forged documents and locked away their verification reports.
Even though no formal case was registered immediately, the ACB launched a discreet investigation — and uncovered widespread malpractice. During Singh’s tenure between March 2020 and August 2023, at least 4,928 pharmacists were registered, many of them suspected to be fraudulent.
Even after being removed from office on August 16, Singh allegedly continued approving applications using his personal email. He registered 232 more people before his final suspension on September 25, 2023.
Investigators discovered that Singh approved many applications before receiving college verifications — and in some cases, even after colleges flagged the documents as fake.
The probe also revealed that the scam wasn’t confined to Delhi. Touts had networks in Punjab, Haryana, and Uttar Pradesh, with colleges willing to validate fake certificates for a price. Staff from SP College of Pharmacy and Meera College of Nursing in Abohar (Punjab), and Mahaveer Singh Chahar College of Pharmacy and RSS College of Pharmacy in Mathura, as well as Baghpat Medical Institute in UP, have been arrested. The owners of some of these institutions remain at large.
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