How Puja Khedkar obtained disability certificate

Probationary Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer Dr Puja Khedkar had obtained a partial 'locomotor disability' certificate from a hospital at Pimpri in Pune district in August 2022, a senior official said on Tuesday.

Khedkar, transferred to Washim from Pune amid allegations of manipulation of disability and OBC certificates for getting into the civil services, claimed that she was being defamed.

The authenticity of various certificates submitted by her to the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC), one of them indicating visual impairment, will be probed as instructed by the Commissioner for Persons with Disabilities, police said earlier in the day.

"She applied for disability certification about her left limb knee joint back in 2022. She visited here for medical examinations and was assessed by multiple departments," said Dr Rajendra Wable, dean of the government-run Yashwantrao Chavan Memorial Hospital, Pimpri.

"It was found that she has a seven per cent locomotor disability," he added.

The certificate, issued on August 24, 2022, stated that she had seven per cent disability in the knee.

Khedkar had earlier submitted two certificates, provided by the Ahmednagar District Civil Hospital in 2018 and 2021, to the UPSC under the Persons with Benchmark Disabilities (PwBD) category.

Additionally, she had applied for a disability certificate from the Aundh government hospital in Pune in August 2022, but after medical tests her application was rejected.

Speaking to reporters in Washim, Khedkar said she had been the victim of a misinformation campaign.

Fake news was being published about her every day, she said.

"Misinformation is being spread and I am facing a lot of defamation. I want to request the media to behave responsibly and not to spread misinformation," she said.

She had called women police personnel to her residence on Monday night as "she had some work," the official said while responding to a question, without elaborating further.

Khedkar was transferred from Pune, where she was posted as assistant collector, to Washim as a supernumerary assistant collector after she was first accused of demanding perks and facilities to which she was not entitled as a trainee official.

A police official in Pune, meanwhile, said they had received a letter from the office of the Commissioner for Persons with Disabilities.

"They have asked us to check the authenticity of certificates submitted by Puja Khedkar. We will verify the facts about these certificates, from where they were obtained, which doctor or hospitals certified them, and other things," he said.

Last week, the Union government set up a one-member committee 'to verify the candidature' of Khedkar and submit a report in two weeks.

Pune Police has also been searching for her parents in a criminal case. A First Information Report was registered against the couple and five others after a video showed Puja's mother Manorama Khedkar, a village sarpanch, allegedly threatening some persons with a gun over a land dispute.

The Pune police on Sunday also confiscated a luxury car used by Puja Khedkar for allegedly installing a red beacon light on it without any authorisation.