UPSC cancels Puja Khedkar’s IAS candidature

The UPSC revoked the provisional candidature of IAS trainee officer Puja Khedkar for the Civil Services Examination (CSE)-2022 and barred her from all future exams and selections conducted by the commission. According to an official release, Khedkar was found guilty of violating the CSE-2022 rules.
The UPSC also reviewed records of more than 15,000 candidates from 2009 to 2023, and identified Khedkar as the only case of exceeding the attempt limit through “identity manipulation”. The commission lodged a criminal complaint with Delhi police on July 19 against Khedkar for forging identity papers.
“The standard operating procedure 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’ names,” the release says.
The debarment action followed Khedkar’s failure to respond to the commission’s show-cause notice, issued on July 18, for “fraudulently availing attempts beyond the permissible limit provided for in the CSE Rules, by faking her identity”. Khedkar changed her name, her parents’ names, her photograph, signature, email ID, mobile number, and address to conceal her real identity and gain additional attempts to appear in the exam, the official note says.
The UPSC had asked Khedkar to respond to the showcause notice by July 25, but she had requested time till Aug 4 to collect necessary documents. The commission extended the deadline till July 30. “Despite the extension, she failed to submit her explanation within the prescribed time,” the release says.
Khedkar, who joined Pune district collector’s office as an assistant collector on probation on June 3, was transferred to Washim on July 8 following district collector Suhas Divase’s report to the state chief secretary regarding her alleged unreasonable demands of privileges not allowed to an IAS probationer, highhanded behaviour with collectorate employees, use of the red-and-blue beacon light on a private Audi car, and occupying an additional collector’s chamber.
Later, her OBC non-creamy layer and disability claims made at the time of appearing in the UPSC exam were questioned.