The Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) on Wednesday said it has cancelled the provisional candidature of Puja Manorama Dilip Khedkar and permanently debarred her from all the future exams/selections.

The action against the trainee IAS officer came in the wake of probe for allegedly lying about her visual and mental disabilities and faking her identity to clear the prestigious civil services entrance exam.

In a statement, the UPSC said, “A show cause notice (SCN) was issued by the UPSC to Puja Manorama Dilip Khedkar, a provisionally recommended candidate of the Civil Services Examination-2022 (CSE-2022) on 18th July for fraudulently availing attempts beyond the permissible limit provided for in the Examination Rules by faking her identity.”

The Commission said she was to submit her response to the SCN by 25th July, however, she requested for further time till 04th August, so that she could gather the necessary documents for her response.

” The UPSC carefully considered the request of Khedkar and in order to meet the ends of justice, she was granted time till 3:30 pm of 30th July so as to enable her to submit the response to the SCN. It was also categorically made clear to Khedkar that it was last and final opportunity to her and no further extension in time would be allowed. It was also conveyed to her in unequivocal terms that if no response was received by the aforesaid date/time, the UPSC would take further action without entertaining any further reference from her,” it said.

Despite extension in time allowed to her, she failed to submit her explanation within the prescribed time, the statement said.

The UPSC said it has examined the available records carefully and found her guilty of acting in contravention of the provisions of the CSE-2022 Rules.

Her provisional candidature for the CSE-2022 has been cancelled and she has also been debarred permanently from all the future Examinations/Selections of the UPSC, it said.

The Commission further said in the backdrop of the case of Khedkar, it has thoroughly examined the available data of more than 15,000 finally recommended candidates of the CSEs from the year 2009 to 2023 i.e. for 15 years 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 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.

The UPSC said it is in the process of further strengthening the SOP to ensure that such a case does not recur in the future.

On the complaints regarding the submission of false certificates (specifically OBC and PwBD categories) are concerned, the UPSC categorically said it does only a preliminary scrutiny of the certificates viz 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. However, it is understood that scrutiny and verification of genuineness of certificates is carried out by the authorities mandate with the task,” it added.