UPSC cancels Puja Khedkar's selection, bars her from all future exams

The Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) on Wednesday said it has cancelled the provisional candidature of probationary Indian Administrative Service officer Puja Khedkar and debarred her from all future examinations or selections.

'The UPSC has examined the available records carefully and found her guilty of acting in contravention of the provisions of the CSE-2022 Rules,' the UPSC said in a statement.

It said her provisional candidature for the CSE-2022 (Civil Services Examination-2022) has been 'cancelled' and she has also been 'debarred permanently' from all future UPSC examinations or selections.

The commission said it was the 'lone case' of Khedkar in the last 15 years where it could not detect that a candidate has exceeded the number of attempts permitted to a candidate for writing the CSE exam 'primarily due to the fact that she changed not only her name but also her parents' name'.

It said the UPSC was in the process of 'further strengthening the SOP to ensure that such a case does not recur in the future'.

The commission said a show-cause notice was issued to Puja Manorama Dilip Khedkar on July 18 for 'fraudulently' availing attempts beyond the permissible limit in the examination by 'faking' her identity.

She was asked to submit her response to the notice by July 25 but she requested time till August 4 to gather the necessary documents for her response, it said.

The UPSC granted her a 'final opportunity' to submit her response by 3.30 pm on July 30 but she 'failed to submit her explanation within the prescribed time', the commission said.

The commission said in the backdrop of the case of Khedkar, it 'thoroughly examined' the data of more than 15,000 'finally recommended candidates' from the civil services exams for the last 15 years (2009-2023) with respect to the number of attempts availed by them.

After this detailed exercise, barring the case of Khedkar, no other candidate has been found to have availed more number of attempts than 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,' it said.

Taking up the issue of complaints regarding the submission of false certificates (specifically OBC and PwBD categories) are concerned, the UPSC said it only does a 'preliminary' scrutiny of the certificates like whether the certificate has been issued by the competent authority, the year to which the certificate pertains, issuing date of the certificate, whether there is any overwriting on the certificate, format of the certificate etc.

'Generally, the certificate is taken as genuine, if it has 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,' it said.

However, the UPSC said, it is understood that scrutiny and verification of genuineness of certificates is carried out by the authorities mandated with the task.

The UPSC has registered a police case against Khedkar for allegedly fraudulently availing attempts in the civil services examination by faking her identity to take the exam beyond the permissible attempts.

The commission conducts the civil services exam annually in three stages -- preliminary, main and interview -- to select officers for the Indian Administrative Service (IAS), Indian Foreign Service (IFS) and the Indian Police Service (IPS), among others.