Most fake marksheets are not made from nothing: someone takes a genuine grade card and changes one mark. A QR code that only says "this certificate exists" does not catch that, because the edited copy still carries the genuine QR code. CertiCheck does.

The university issues grade cards and degree certificates whose QR code holds every printed detail, digitally signed with its private key (Ed25519). Anyone checks a copy on the verify page, from a PDF, a scan or a phone photo: the page reads the QR code and the printed text in the browser (PDF text, or OCR for photos) and compares every detail with what was signed. An edited mark is outlined in red on the document, with the value the university really signed beside it. A look-alike made elsewhere fails the signature, and a revoked certificate names the one that replaced it.

Built on a real problem: Smart India Hackathon 2025, statement SIH25029 (Government of Jharkhand), detecting fake degrees and marksheets.

It runs on any laptop with Node.js, needs no separate MongoDB install, and opens with a sample university (30 students, 59 certificates) and six sample certificates, so the demo works the first time.

Keywords: MERN, digital signatures, QR code, OCR, certificate verification, Smart India Hackathon