Kendrapara, Dec. 8: The school and mass education department has removed 14 teachers from their jobs for allegedly submitting fake BEd degree certificates.

A special squad of the department had earlier detected that 14 persons were holding government teaching posts with fake B.Ed. certificates.

The accused teachers are on the run after the authorities lodged police complaints against them seeking initiation of penal action. The BEd degrees furnished by more than a hundred teachers of the government-run primary and high schools are found suspicious, following which the department launched a drive to uncover the certificate fraud.

A team was constituted to crosscheck the authenticity of the BEd degrees of the serving teachers.

A highly-placed government official said that the list was prepared randomly to detect the legitimacy of the degree certificates.

The inquiring officials then identified the 14 erring teachers, said district education officer Sangram Sahoo.

The verification process of BEd certificates of more than a 100 teachers is still in progress.

The dubious certificates held by the serving teachers were sent to the respective institutions from where they claimed to have graduated with the degree.

Kedarnath Sahu, the sub-divisional police officer said: "Cases under Section 420 (cheating) and other relevant sections of Indian Penal Code have been registered against those named by the school and mass education department."

"We are conducting a separate probe into the incident. The accused persons would be arrested after the inquiry concludes," the police officer added.