Puja Khedkar Row : After the Union Public Service Commission canceled the certificate of IAS probationer Puja Khedkar, now the disability certificates of six civil servants are under scrutiny. The Department of Personnel and Training ( DoPT ) is looking into the medical documents of these six people after their certificates were shown on social media platforms, a News18 report said. Out of these six civil servants, five are from the IAS and one from the IRS.

Disability and OBC quota misused

This comes after the cancellation of Pooja Khedkar's candidature as the UPSC found the allegations against her of violating the examination rules and guidelines to be true. Pooja Khedkar is accused of misusing the disability and OBC quota for selection in the IAS service. The DoPT said in a statement that the UPSC has carefully examined the available records and found her guilty of acting in violation of the provisions of the CSE-2022 rules. Her provisional candidature for CSE-2022 has been canceled and she has been permanently debarred from all future examinations/selections of UPSC.

A Delhi court also rejected the anticipatory bail plea filed by Pooja Khedkar. The investigating agency needs to expand the scope of investigation. The agency has been directed to trace the candidates recommended bthe by UPSC in recent times who have benefited from exceeding the age limit allowed under the OBC quota and those who have availed the benefit of disabled quota despite not being entitled to it.

He cheated by giving a fake identity and took the exam

The UPSC had issued a show cause notice to Khedkar on July 18 for fraudulently availing more attempts than the permissible limit given in the examination rules by forging her identity. She was asked to file her reply to the notice by July 25, but she sought more time till August 4. The UPSC allowed her till July 30 to file her reply. Puja could not file her reply. The Puja Khedkar case comes in the backdrop of the UPSC allegedly scrutinising the data of over 15,000 recommended candidates from 2009 to 2023.

AccscrutinizingSC, no other candidate was allowed to take more attempts than what is allowed under the CSE rules. Puja Manorama Dilip Khedkar is the only case where UPSC's standard operating procedure (SOP) could not detect Puja's number of attempts beyond what is allowed because she had changed not only her name but also her parents' names.