A former Customs appraiser, on the run for 20 years after being charged with corruption and bribery by the CBI, has been nabbed from a private medical college in Uttar Pradesh, where he had bagged the job of an internal medicine professor on the basis of fake degrees, officials said on March 8.

Abhinav Singh was working as an associate professor at the K D Medical College Hospital and Research Centre at Akbarpur, Mathura, under the pseudonym -- Rajeev Gupta. He was teaching internal medicine to MBBS students, officials at the hospital told PTI on the condition of anonymity.

Singh's recent arrest has raised serious questions on the quality of education being imparted to students who will be future doctors, a senior official said. Singh, a former Customs appraiser in Mumbai, fled after the CBI booked him in a case on September 29, 1999 for allegedly causing a loss of Rs four crore to the Customs department by confirming fake DEPB scrips (Duty Entitlement Pass Book).

He was also alleged to have taken a bribe of Rs five lakh and a Maruti Zen car, the officials said. "The accused was absconding for the last about 20 years and was declared a proclaimed offender by the court," a CBI spokesperson said here.

Singh has been taken to Mumbai, where he is being questioned by CBI sleuths. A resident of Jhansi, Singh told the interrogators that he was employed at the K D Medical College for the last two-three years. Before that, he had worked at a number of medical colleges in Faridabad and other cities, sources said.

In order to evade arrest, Singh had even ensured that his children adopted his assumed last name -- Gupta -- they added. "The accused did not join the investigation and was absconding. He was removed from service by the competent authority," the CBI spokesperson said.

He added that a chargesheet was filed on March 27, 2002 in a special court in Mumbai against Singh and the other accused in the case and the trial was in progress against the other accused. "It was alleged that while working as an appraiser in the Customs department, Mumbai, he had abused his official position and dishonestly confirmed fake DEPB scrips, submitted by the other accused companies and persons, as genuine," he said.