Rs 3.6 lakh salary but Rs 40,000 ‘income’: Story of KPSC chairman’s downfall - The Indian Express

From question papers leaked to a select group of candidates to the alleged illegal selection of its chairman’s daughter, the Karnataka Public Service Commission (KPSC) is mired in controversy over two major recruitment scandals. Its chairman, Shivashankarappa S Sahukar, has been suspended even as the state police’s Criminal Investigation Department (CID) is probing multiple allegations of nepotism and corruption.

One case relates to the recruitment of the KPSC chief’s daughter Suma Sahukar (28) to the post of industrial extension officer in the state industries and commerce department under the OBC quota, allegedly using a fake income certificate.

The second case, in which the chairman’s anticipatory bail was rejected on September 7 amid CID investigations, concerns the recruitment of 400 veterinary doctors, where 29 of the selected candidates, including another alleged relative of the chairman, are accused of receiving the question paper a day before the exam.

Both cases, in which selection began in 2024 and was completed in July this year, are before the Karnataka High Court. BJP MLA Basanagouda Patil Yatnal has sought a CBI probe into Suma’s recruitment, while an affected candidate in the other case, Dr Manjunath (30), has sought a probe by the central agency into the veterinarians’ recruitment. The court has barred coercive police action against some of the 29 alleged beneficiaries and reserved its verdict on the CBI-probe demand.

On September 7, the CID told the High Court that Sahukar was allegedly in frequent contact via internet calls with middleman and self-styled BJP worker Basavaraj Kannale, who allegedly leaked the veterinarians’ exam paper along with the arrested KPSC controller of exams, IAS officer Gyanendra Kumar Gangwar. Gangwar has been arrested and the KPSC chairman questioned by the CID three times in the case.

Hearing BJP MLA Yatnal’s plea on July 20, the High Court observed that the allegations, if true, “have the potential to erode the sanctity of a constitutional institution entrusted with one of the most solemn public functions — the recruitment of meritorious candidates into the civil services of the State”.

According to the FIR filed on July 10 by a KPSC representative, the Commission had called for recruitment to 50 posts of Industrial Extension Officers in March 2024. Sahukar’s daughter Suma applied under the OBC III B category, wrote the exam in July 2025, and was selected in January 2026. During document verification in February this year, she allegedly produced an income certificate showing Rs 40,000 annual family income, as per the FIR registered for forgery and fraud.

However, the FIR said, her father became a KPSC member on September 3, 2019 at Rs 2.05 lakh a month, and chairman on April 5, 2021 at Rs 2.25 lakh a month. KPSC records show Sahukar’s gross monthly salary as chairman was Rs 3.60 lakh in 2023 — more than Rs 42 lakh a year, over 100 times what Suma claimed was her family’s annual income.

Suma was granted conditional anticipatory bail on July 24. Her father was suspended by Governor Thaawarchand Gehlot on August 25, on the state cabinet’s recommendation.

In an FIR filed on July 24, 2026, against Sahukar and two unnamed KPSC members, Dr Manjunath and 24 others alleged they were wrongly denied selection to 400 veterinarian posts announced in 2024. The FIR states 29 candidates scored abnormally high marks in the January 2026 test, including an alleged relative of the KPSC chairman. The complaint alleges the paper was leaked beforehand. The CID probe has allegedly found candidates paid up to Rs 80 lakh to middlemen, were housed at resorts and hotels, coached on answers, and driven to exam centres on the day.

The CID probe has allegedly found candidates paid up to Rs 80 lakh to middlemen, were housed at resorts and hotels, coached on answers, and driven to exam centres on the day.

Hearing Manjunath’s plea on July 29, the High Court said: “The complaint, therefore, paints a picture of a recruitment exercise that, if the allegations ultimately withstand judicial scrutiny, would disclose not sporadic irregularities but a systematic assault upon the constitutional mandate governing public employment.”

A third FIR, filed in July, alleges that candidates’ confidential details were leaked to middlemen even before the process concluded, with offers made “in exchange for enormous sums of money”, including one aspirant allegedly offered OMR-sheet changes for Rs 80 lakh. The purported recordings of such offers were given to police via a complaint filed on May 29, 2026.

Sahukar was appointed KPSC member and chairman during the BJP’s 2019-2023 tenure. BJP MLA Yatnal, a bitter political rival of party colleague B S Yediyurappa, has said that Sahukar was appointed by the former CM as he was a relative. Yatnal also called the subsequent Congress government’s registration of the case as an “eyewash”.

BJP state president and Yediyurappa’s son B Y Vijayendra said there was “no question of backing anybody who was guilty”. Congress leader and the state’s Home Minister Priyank Kharge said his government is committed to “upholding the integrity and credibility of the public recruitment process” and that the CID’s involvement would “inspire confidence among lakhs of aspirants”.

The CID probe has also raised questions about the KPSC’s recent recruitment of 384 Karnataka Administrative Service gazetted probationers, for which over two lakh aspirants appeared for the 2024 preliminary exam — after documents relating to some candidates surfaced during searches on arrested middleman Kannale.

Another CID probe is underway into a complaint over a shortlisted Karnataka Administrative Service (KAS) aspirant being allegedly favoured by a KPSC member during the interview process in May 2026.

This is not the first time that the KPSC has come under the scanner.

It has seen politically driven appointments for years, with major recruitment scams coming to light in 1998, 1999, 2004 and 2011 involving A K Monappa, a secretary, H N Krishna, a chairman, Mangala Sridhar, a member, and Gonal Bheemappa, a chairman. Following the latest scandal, former Karnataka CM, leader of the JD(S) and Union minister H D Kumaraswamy has sought the disbanding of the KPSC.