Examination candidates found to have forged their results slips will not only be disqualified for university admission, but could also face legal action, Higher Education Minister Shafie Salleh said today.

"Forgery is a criminal offence," he told a press conference at the Parliament lobby, when commenting on information provided by MCA Youth Education Bureau chief Dr Wee Ka Siong that a student may have forged his results slip to obtain a place in university.

Shafie also said that any loan or scholarship given to those involved would be revoked.

Only two cases of forgery have been detected - one this year after Wee disclosed the matter, and one last year. Both students have had their application for university admission rejected.

Elaborating, Shafie said checks on the authenticity of the results slips have been carried out randomly up to now.

He said he would instruct all local universities to monitor the progress of students as one way of being alert to the possibility that they may have forged their results slips for admission.

"For instance, if the student is studying economics but cannot even answer a basic economics question during the tutorial session, it would be suspicious... the university should then check on the authenticity of that student's results slip," he explained.

To a question, he said the ministry would not be able to verify all result slips as it has to handle thousands of applications for admission to local public universities annually.

Shafie added that he would hold discussions with ministry officials on how to enhance the security features of the result slip.

'Press misquoted me'

Meanwhile, Wee - who is Ayer Hitam parliamentarian - claimed he had been misquoted in the press as saying that he had detected a case of forgery.

"What I told the Chinese press initially was that there could be cases of such forgery, after I noted that a student had made a false declaration of his results," he said when met at the Parliament lobby.

"This was later picked up by the English-language and Malay media and misconstrued as my having detected the case."

He said he had found the false declaration while handling the appeals of 128 top students who had failed to get seats for medical studies in local universities.

"I became suspicious when the student did not submit his result slip but merely stated in the appeal letter that he had obtained CGPA (Cumulative Grade Point Average) 4.0 - later found to be only 3.88," he said.

Wee then referred the case to the Higher Education Ministry as it is authorised to check the authenticity of documents submitted with such applications.

"It is up to the ministry to investigate and confirm if there was forgery in this case," he added.