Karnataka: Cases Against 249 Guest Lecturers For Submitting Fake PhD Certificates
The Karnataka Collegiate Education Department has ordered the registration of criminal cases against 249 people who secured appointments as guest faculty members in government first-grade colleges by allegedly submitting fake or invalid PhD certificates during the 2025-26 recruitment process.
By : DC Correspondent
Update: 2026-07-24 08:48 GMT
Bengaluru: The Karnataka Collegiate Education Department has ordered the registration of criminal cases against 249 people who secured appointments as guest faculty members in government first-grade colleges by allegedly submitting fake or invalid PhD certificates during the 2025-26 recruitment process.The department has also permanently blacklisted all 249 candidates, barring them from participating in future selections.
"Based on the information entered by the principals of the respective colleges in the Department's EMIS portal, and as per the report of the Departmental Scrutiny Committee constituted at the Head Office level, the lists of guest lecturers who worked during the academic year 2025-26 and submitted fake or invalid PhD certificates have been prepared. These guest lecturers have been debarred from the selection process for all future academic years," the order issued earlier this week said.
"Further, since the guest lecturers listed allegedly submitted fake/invalid PhD certificates and attempted to deceive the government by furnishing false information/documents, instructions have been issued to register criminal cases against them at the concerned police stations under the applicable provisions of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), submit a report to this office within one week, and upload the relevant information to the Department's EMIS portal," it added.
The state government had recruited around 10,000 guest faculty members for the 2025-26 academic year through an online counselling process based on workload requirements in government first grade colleges and information furnished by applicants.
As part of a one-time verification exercise, principals of the respective colleges were directed to obtain authenticity reports from the concerned universities and institutions for postgraduate marks cards, National Eligibility Test (NET), Karnataka State Eligibility Test (K-SET), PhD, MPhil and Kalyana Karnataka certificates submitted by selected candidates.
The verification was carried out under a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) issued by the department.
Under the SOP, college-level committees headed by principals were mandated to verify the certificates and terminate the services of guest lecturers if any document was found to be fake or invalid. Such cases were to be uploaded on the department's Education Management Information System (EMIS) portal.
Candidates aggrieved by the college-level committee's decision were allowed to appeal, following which their cases were to be referred to the department's head office along with supporting documents for further scrutiny.
The department said committees headed by senior officials at both the college and head office levels examined the academic credentials of guest lecturers and found that 249 candidates had submitted fake or invalid PhD certificates.