The Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) is probing into the cases of fake disability certificates of six officials after the allegations leveled by trainee IAS officer Puja Khedkar. Khedkar is charged with nondisclosure of physical disability and Other Backward Class (OBC) certificates with an intention of getting more chances to appear in Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) examination.
As per the UPSC norms, the disabled can avail the benefits of reservation policies in terms of upper age limit, number of attempts and special arrangements in the examination centers etc. on the basis of 40 percent or more disability. But, there seems to have existed some sub fertility in the locomotor disability quota in spite of the physiotherapy department ruling out any form of disability for Khedkar, who allegedly procured a 7% locomotor disability certificate from the Yashwantrao Chavan Memorial (YCM) Hospital. This certificate apparently empowered her to attempt the civil services exam more than once, which is prohibited under the UPSC rules.
An India Today report established that the DoPT has prompted the Director General of Health Services (DGHS) to get a medical board to review the disability aspect of the six candidates in question. The review was provoked by the consideration of medical certificates of the athletes on social media.
The UPSC after going through records of 15,000 odd candidates zeroed down on Khedkar for having availed more attempts than admissible. The differences emerged from the modifications of her and her parents’ names.
In the first case, the UPSC had earlier this week thrown out Khedkar’s candidature for the 2022 civil services examination and prevented her from writing any other exam. After this the Delhi police registered a case against her under the UPSC complaint.
In the event of submission of fake disability / caste certificates, UPSC has asserted that the UPSC conducts preliminary screening only and takes certificates at face value as and when issued by the competent authorities. However, the commission observed that there was a difficulty to ASSESS the many certificates produced by the candidates every year.
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Anti-Sikh Riots Case; Delhi Court Rejects Khedkar’s Bail Application
Citing facts about the latest development relating to the case, further said: On Thursday, Delhi’s Patiala House court dismissed anticipatory bail petition of Puja Khedkar. An IAS officer, who is a trainee, applied for pre-arrest bail in connection with the use of forged methods to clear UPSC examinations.
The court underlined the fact that the scope of investigation has to be widened by the Delhi Police, which is the investigating agency. It directed the police to look into the possibility of any collusion by any official of the UPSC in helping Khedkar try to subvert the examination regime.
Thus, this study emphasizes the significance of avoiding corruption, deception, and fake news in the civil service examination and the necessity to strengthen the requirements for candidate admission.
Report By: Sonali Sarkar
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