UPSC scans 15 years’ data of 15K IAS candidates, only Puja Khedkar emerges as black sheep

Mumbai: Taking serious cognisance of the complaints against 2023 Maharashtra cadre probationary IAS officer Puja Khedkar, the UPSC carried out an unprecedented scrutiny of the number of attempts availed by over 15,000 IAS candidates for 15 years, as per an official statement.

After a thorough examination of the Civil Service Examinations (CSE) from 2009 to 2023 for over 15,000 finally recommended candidates, it has emerged that only Puja Khedkar flouted the rules.

Accordingly, the UPSC on Wednesday cancelled her provisional candidature for CSE-2022, and permanently debarred her from all future exams/selections.

“After this detailed exercise, barring the case of Puja Khedkar, no other candidate was found to have availed more number of attempts than permitted under the CSE Rules,” said the UPSC.

In the lone case of Puja Khedkar, the UPSC admitted that its Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) “could not detect her number of attempts primarily because she changed not only her name but also her parents’ names”.

The UPSC said it is now in the process of further strengthening its SOPs to plug any possible loopholes to ensure that such a case does not recur in the future.

Regarding the complaints pertaining to the submission of false certificates (specifically OBC and PwBD categories), the UPSC said that “it only does a preliminary scrutiny of the certificates, viz. whether the certificate has been issued by the competent authority, the issuing year, date, whether there is any overwriting on the certificate, its format, 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.

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

The UPSC, Central government, Maharashtra government, and the police are conducting separate probes against Puja Khedkar, while the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration in Mussoorie recently removed her from field training as a trainee IAS officer in Pune and Washim districts.