UPSC cancels candidature of Puja Khedkar from IAS, debars her from all future selections
New Delhi, Jul 31: The UPSC on Wednesday said it has cancelled the provisional candidature of probationary IAS 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 Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) said in a statement.
It said the provisional candidature of the 2023 batch probationary IAS officer for the CSE-2022 (Civil Services Examination-2022) has been "cancelled" and she has also been "debarred permanently" from all future examinations or selections conducted by the UPSC.
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.
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Duleep Trophy: Pacers shine as India B beat India A by 76 runs
Bengaluru, Sep 8: KL Rahul's gumption, which helped him pile a patient fifty, found no resonance among his colleagues as India B pacers led by Yash Dayal pushed India A to a 76-run defeat on the fourth and final day of their Duleep Trophy match here on Sunday.
Chasing 275, India A were bundled out for 198 in their second innings as left-arm seamer Dayal (3/50), with able support from his colleagues Mukesh Kumar (2/50) and Navdeep Saini (2/41), led the India B attack.
Rahul top-scored for 'A' with a 51.
In the first session of the day, India B made 184 all out in their second essay to muster a handy overall lead of 274.
The India A chase began on a shaky note as Mayank Agarwal departed in the second over itself, wafting Dayal away from his body to Nitish Kumar Reddy, who made a wonderful diving catch at second slip.
That brought Riyan Parag to the middle and the right-hander followed the path set on Saturday by Rishabh Pant and Sarfaraz Khan.
Parag took on the bowlers and pacer Mukesh bore the brunt of his aggression, getting smoked for two sixes and the second maximum touched the roof of the Chinnaswamy Stadium over the mid-wicket region.
Parag added 48 runs for the second with a rather subdued Shubman Gill, who was dropped by Nitish Reddy at slips off Mukesh on 16, and 31 came off the former's bat in just 18 balls.
But the approach was tough to sustain considering the kind of assistance the bowlers were getting here, and soon his massive hoick off Dayal took an edge off Parag's bat en route to stumper Rishabh Pant.
Gill (21) departed soon, falling to Saini for the second time in the match and on this occasion, he edged the pacer to Pant.
Dhruv Jurel poked Dayal well outside off-stump to Yashasvi Jaiswal at gully, as India batters perished to a combination of bowlers' persistence on that channel and their own carelessness.
They took the lunch at a queasy 76 for four that soon transpired into 99 for six after the dismissal of Shivam Dube and Tanush Kotian, an hour into the lunch.
However, Rahul batted out 180 minutes 121 balls and milked 42 runs for the seventh wicket with Kuldeep Yadav to delay the inevitable.
The standout shot in an otherwise dour innings was a whistling on drive off Mukesh that fetched him a boundary.
But Mukesh had his revenge soon when Rahul feathered a cut off him to Pant, who completed five catches in this innings, soon after reaching his fifty with a single off Saini.
It effectively signalled the end of the road of for India A, though Akash Deep (43, 42b, 3x4, 4x6) gave a few moments of fun with a cavalier innings.
But beyond the entertainment value, it always was a case of when more than if.
Earlier, resuming from their overnight score of 150 for six India B could only 34 runs more to the total before getting bundled out.
Pacer Akash, whom Sarfaraz Khan carted around for five fours in a row the previous day, found his mojo to add the scalps of Washington Sundar and Saini to complete a five-wicket haul (5/56).
The spell will keep his name floating among the contenders when the selectors sit together soon to pick up squad for two-match Test series against Bangladesh.
