Finally, after a month of making headlines, the candidature of trainee Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer Puja Manorama Dilip Khedkar’s was cancelled by the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) in 2022 Civil Services Examination. The UPSC also barred her from appearing for any future examinations of the Commission, after finding she had violated rules by appearing for the exam more than the stipulated attempts.
The UPSC had issued the tainted trainee officer a show-cause notice on July 18 for “fraudulently availing attempts beyond the permissible limit provided for in the Examination Rules by faking her identity” and had directed her to submit her response to the notice by July 25. However, the latter asked for further time till August 4 but the Commission allowed her till 3.30 pm on July 30 to make her submissions.
A statement issued by UPSC stated “Despite an extension in time allowed to her, she failed to submit her explanation within the prescribed time. The UPSC has examined the available records carefully and found her guilty of acting in contravention of the provisions of the CSE-2022 Rules. Her provisional candidature for the CSE-2022 has been cancelled and she has also been debarred permanently from all the future Examinations/Selections of the UPSC.”
As per the statement, in light of Khedkar’s case, the UPSC had examined data of over 15,000 recommended candidates from 2009 to 2023, and found that apart from her, no other candidate had availed of more attempts than what was permitted under the CSE Rules.
“In the lone case of Ms. Puja Manorama Dilip Khedkar, the Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) of the UPSC could not detect her number of attempts primarily due to the fact that she changed not only her name but also her parents’ name. The UPSC is in the process of further strengthening the SOP to ensure that such a case does not recur in the future,” read the statement.
Regarding submission of false disability and Other Backward Class (OBC) certificates, UPSC maintained that it carried out preliminary scrutiny and presumed the certificates as genuine, if they were issued by a 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. However, it is understood that scrutiny and verification of genuineness of certificates is carried out by the authorities mandated with this task,” the statement mentioned.
