On Monday, September 15, Santosh Kumar Satpathy, a lecturer in the Commerce department at Balikuda College since 2018, was dismissed from service after it was discovered that he had secured his position using a fraudulent M Com certificate, reported The New Indian Express.
Satpathy had joined Balikuda College in 2018, presenting an MCom certificate purportedly issued by a university in Sikkim in 2014. The certificate was initially accepted by the college management committee at the time of his appointment.
A complaint alleging that Satpathy’s certificate was fake was initially ignored. However, in August 2025, the complainant escalated the issue by filing a petition through the chief minister’s Jana Sunani portal, prompting an inquiry.
Following directions from the Chief Minister’s Office, the district administration tasked the sub-collector of Jagatsinghpur, who also serves as the president of the Balikuda college management committee, with investigating the matter.
A fact-finding team, formed by the sub-collector, verified the authenticity of the MCom certificate and confirmed it was fake. Based on the inquiry’s findings, sub-collector Prasant Kumar Tarai directed the college principal to terminate Satpathy’s services and initiate steps to recover the salary paid to him since his appointment.
Krushna Prasad Mohanty, Principal of Balikuda College, confirmed the action taken: “Satpathy was appointed as a lecturer by the college management committee. Following the directive of the sub-collector, I have dismissed the lecturer from service for producing fake certificate.”
