PUNE, April 17 -- Close on the heels of a massive recruitment scam involving 580 teaching and non-teaching staff being unearthed in Chandrapur, a similar con has surfaced in Kolhapur.

The state higher education department has come across significant irregularities in the appointment of non-teaching staff to the Kolhapur division. The department has found around 85 non-teaching staff members from permanently unaided colleges in Kolhapur, Sangli and Satara districts to have been appointed to subsidised posts in flagrant violation of the rules. Furthermore, the department has found irregularities in confirming these non-teaching staff members' pay based on their prior service records, and in the payment of their arrears. Reportedly, several...