SUMMARY
The UPSC has dismissed Puja Khedkar, 34, an IAS officer who had cleared the exam in 2022, and is accused of lying about her caste and physical abilities to get an extra attempt. The Delhi High Court had protected her from arrest till September 5.
1 / 5Puja Khedkar has been dismissed from the Indian Administrative Service. The national spotlight was on the 34-year-old woman in early 2024 for allegedly demanding privileges even as a probationary officer. “After conducting a cursory enquiry, it was found that Ms. Puja Manorama Dilip Khedkar, IAS Probationer (MH:2023), was not eligible to be a candidate for CSE-2022, which was the year of her selection and appointment to the IAS. Hence, she was not eligible for recruitment in the Indian Administrative Service,” a note shared by government sources on September 6 said. Photo courtesy of Twitter
2 / 5Public attention led to further revelations about the Maharashtra officer who ranked 841st in the 2022 Civil Services Examination for the Indian bureaucracy. The charges against her included lying about her caste and physical abilities to get extra attempts to crack the UPSC exam. On 19 July 2024, the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) filed a First Information Report against Khedkar and issued a show-cause notice asking her to explain why her candidature should not be cancelled.
3 / 5Meanwhile, on July 22, a Pune district court sent his mother Manorama Khedkar to judicial custody for allegedly threatening some people with a firearm, in connection with a land dispute.
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5 / 5As a direct result of the Puja Khedkar controversy, the UPSC has decided to implement Aadhaar-based authentication to verify the identity of candidates at the time of registration, examinations and recruitment. The UPSC has also invited tenders from government companies to enable facial recognition of candidates and QR code scanning of e-admit cards and an AI-based live CCTV monitoring service, according to the Press Trust of India news agency.
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