Faking disability, caste? Trainee IAS officer could face service termination

Aditi Tandon

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New Delhi, July 12

In the eye of a storm over allegedly faking her disability and caste to secure entry into the prestigious civil services, trainee IAS officer Puja Khedkar is staring at a possible job termination.

Government sources said the committee set up to probe her claims had begun investigations into the matter on Friday and would also rope in experts from AIIMS, New Delhi, and the National Commission for Backward Classes to determine her claims

Khedkar, 32, secured All India Rank 841 in the UPSC examination held in 2022. She got into the IAS under the Other Backward Classes and Persons with Benchmark Disability categories, declaring herself to be from the non-creamy OBC layer and claimed visual and mental disability.

Government sources today said Khedkar could be terminated from service if the charges were proven. It is learnt that the Maharashtra Government petitioned the Centre to take a serious view of the case, with the PMO and Department of Personnel and Training taking cognisance and constituting a probe panel under Additional Secretary Manoj Dwivedi.

The government sources said only AIIMS-Delhi certification was officially valid in cases where civil services aspirants claimed disability. Khedkar had not appeared before the AIIMS panel and though the UPSC challenged her selection in the Central Administrative Tribunal, which ruled against her, she still got into the services.

Sources said her parents’ annual income, as revealed now, was more than Rs 8 lakh, which is the cut off for the non-creamy layer OBCs.

“The trainee officer’s service is likely to be terminated if the certifications she has used to enter the IAS are proved forged. The DoPT is cognisant of the matter,” said official sources, flagging a worrying trend where aspirants are resorting to similar frauds to get into the civil services.

Meanwhile, Pune’s District Collector Suhas Diwase on Friday sent his report about Khedkar to Maharashtra Chief Secretary Sujata Saunik.

Khedkar, posted as Assistant Collector at Pune, was transferred to Washim this week after her unethical conduct was called out by Pune DC Diwase. Khedkar had sought for herself a cabin with attached washroom, a car, residential quarters and a peon, to which probationers are not entitled.