The Union Public Service Commission on Wednesday revoked the selection of Puja Khedkar as a trainee officer in the Indian Administrative Service and permanently banned her from all the examinations that it conducts.
The UPSC held that Khedkar faked her identity to appear for the civil services exam more times than she was allowed.
The commission had issued the trainee officer a show cause notice on July 18 and asked her to reply by July 25. She requested time till August 4, after which the panel granted her an extension till July 30 as a final opportunity.
“Despite extension in time allowed to her, she failed to submit her explanation within the prescribed time,” the UPSC said.
The commission said it could not detect how many times Khedkar attempted the examination as she changed not only her name but also her parents’ name in her applications. “The UPSC is in the process of further strengthening the SOP to ensure that such a case does not recur in the future,” the panel said.
Earlier this month, The Hindu reported that Khedkar appeared for the examination 12 times.
On July 19, the UPSC booked Khedkar for alleged forgery and issued a show cause notice for cancelling her candidature in the 2022 Civil Services Examination.
The controversy relating to Khedkar, who was a Maharashtra cadre officer, erupted after Pune-based Right to Information activist Vijay Kumbhar alleged that she had become a civil services officer by availing benefits under the Other Backward Classes quota. In this category, those with parents having an annual income of more than Rs 8 lakh are classified in the “creamy layer”.
Khedkar was also accused of falsely claiming to be visually and mentally impaired.
The UPSC, however, did not say on Wednesday whether Khedkar submitted false certificates about her OBC status and disability. The commission said it only carries out a preliminary scrutiny of the certificates and that generally, documents are taken as genuine if they have been issued by the competent authority.
“The UPSC neither has the mandate nor the wherewithal to check the veracity of thousands of certificates submitted by the candidates every year,” the commission said. “However, it is understood that scrutiny and verification of genuineness of certificates is carried out by the authorities mandate[d] with the task.”
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