On Thursday, Delhi’s Patiala House court dismissed the anticipatory bail plea of Puja Khedkar, a trainee IAS officer. Khedkar is accused of using fraudulent means to pass the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) examination. She had requested pre-arrest bail after being charged with faking her identity to gain more attempts at the UPSC exam.
The court stated that the Delhi Police needs to broaden the scope of its investigation into the case. The court also instructed the police to determine if an insider at UPSC had assisted Khedkar in her alleged fraud.
On Wednesday, the UPSC canceled Khedkar’s provisional candidacy and banned her from taking any future exams conducted by the commission. “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 commission stated. “Her provisional candidature for the CSE-2022 has been canceled, and she has been permanently debarred from all future Examinations/Selections of the UPSC.”
Khedkar had secured an all-India rank of 821 in the UPSC exams. The UPSC has since reviewed the records of over 15,000 candidates recommended from 2009 to 2023 and found no other instances of candidates exceeding the allowed number of attempts, except for Khedkar’s case.
The UPSC noted that Khedkar managed to evade detection by changing not only her name but also her parent’s names. The commission is now working on improving its Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) to prevent such incidents in the future.
The Delhi Police registered an FIR against Khedkar following a complaint by the UPSC. This action by the UPSC came two weeks after Khedkar was removed from the District Training Programme of the Maharashtra government.
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