Centre discharges Puja Khedkar from Indian Administrative Service
New Delhi, Sep 7: The central government has discharged Puja Khedkar, former probationary civil servant, from the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) with immediate effect, official sources said on Saturday.
Khedkar has been accused of cheating and wrongly availing Other Backward Classes (OBC) and disability quota benefits to ensure her selection in the service. She has denied all allegations.
The central government, vide order dated September 6, 2024, discharged Khedkar from the Indian Administrative Service under Rule 12 of IAS (Probation) Rules, 1954, with immediate effect, the sources said.
The rules allow the central government to discharge probationers from service if they fail "to pass the re-examination..." or "if the central government is satisfied that the probationer was ineligible for recruitment to the Service or is unsuitable for being a member of the Service", among others.
The Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) had on July 31 cancelled her candidature and debarred her from future exams.
Khedkar was serving as a probationary IAS officer in her cadre state Maharashtra.
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Congress using hijab issue to pacify minority anger, alleges Karnataka LoP R Ashoka
Bengaluru: Leader of Opposition in the Assembly R. Ashoka has accused the Congress government of using the hijab issue to placate what he described as discontent among minority voters after the Davanagere by-election.
In a post on X on Wednesday, Ashoka alleged that the state government, instead of addressing issues such as price rise, corruption, farmers’ distress and law and order, was attempting to retain its minority vote base by reviving the hijab issue.
Referring to the 2022 dress code introduced by the BJP government, which prohibited hijab in schools and colleges, Ashoka said the Karnataka High Court had upheld the policy and emphasised the importance of discipline in educational institutions.
He questioned the Congress government’s move to revisit the issue and asked whether setting aside the court-backed policy to benefit one community could be described as secularism.
Ashoka further alleged that while the government was willing to permit hijab, it continued to prohibit saffron shawls.
He accused the government of dividing students on religious lines rather than treating schools and colleges as spaces of equality.
Drawing a comparison with Mamata Banerjee’s government in West Bengal, Ashoka claimed that excessive appeasement politics had harmed the state and warned that the Congress in Karnataka could face a similar political response.
He said voters in Karnataka would teach the Congress a lesson for what he termed “vote-bank politics” and for compromising constitutional and judicial principles.
