In shocking news, UPSC has served a show cause notice to cancel the selection of trainee IAS officer Puja Khedkar, whose impersonation, alleged visual and mental disabilities and false identity were under the charge of her to get through Civil Services examinations-entrance.
As per UPSC, Ms Khedkar “cheated the process and took attempts beyond the permissible limit.” The commission had “taken a series of actions against her,” the commission said about the 23-year-old.
The Delhi Police have charges of forgery framed against her, besides the UPSC, which has issued her a show-cause notice to afford her a chance to explain herself before further actions are instituted against her.
The report submitted by the Maharashtra government to the Centre contains documents to analyse Ms Khedkar’s reality of disability and Other Backward Class statuses. The latter also contains claims about Ms Khedkar’s corruption during her first assignment as an Assistant Collector in Pune.
As is evident from the current happenings and the emergence of the UPSCs and these investigations, the very legitimacy that a nation’s premier civil service examination process is based on has been challenged, leading to questions about the system’s capacity to weed out such alleged malpractices.
