Pooja Khedkar case and layers of corruption, The reality of UPSC exam!: A Real Fact: Every year, around 10 lakh candidates appear for the UPSC (Union Public Service Commission) exam, with a resolve that one day they will serve the country by working as a District Collector, Health Secretary, or in the Prime Minister’s Office.
This is what they are taught: don’t give up, those who try never lose. But what will they do if one day they come to know that the exam in which they were running with lakhs of students for a few seats was fixed from the beginning, that is, it was already decided that only a few will be selected and the rest will be excluded?
Pooja Khedkar case
Pooja Khedkar, who was completing her IAS training in Pune, behaved in a manner that was not up to the standards of government officials. She demanded several special facilities, such as a beacon for her private Audi car, VIP number plate, and a Maharashtra government board. Apart from this, she also demanded a separate chamber, vehicle, accommodation and policemen. Her attitude has shaken the government. Considering the gravity of the issue, the government has set up a panel that will investigate the matter. Also, the Prime Minister’s Office has also sought a report on his case.
Document fraud probe
The central government has set up a committee to probe allegations of document fraud. The case is so shocking that some of the information may be hard to believe. The person who was misusing the system is familiar with all the details of the case. Understanding the depth of the case, an important fact is that a family lives in Pathardi tehsil of Ahmednagar district of Maharashtra, which includes many political and administrative persons.
Political and administrative background of the family
This is the family of Pooja Khedkar. Her father, Dilip Rao Khedkar, is a retired IAS officer who worked in the Maharashtra Pollution Control Board. He is also a politician and contested the 2024 Lok Sabha elections as a candidate of the Panchayat Bahujan Aghadi Party, in which he received 15,000 votes. Pooja’s mother, Manora Khedkar, is the head of Bhalgaon village in Pathardi tehsil, where the family resides. Recently, an old video went viral on social media in which Manora Khedkar was threatening a farmer with a gun. Some villagers say that the family is trying to take over the farmers’ land. Pooja’s grandfather was also a senior bureaucrat. Pooja studied MBBS from Pune and worked as an endocrinologist, who specializes in hormones, at Gangaram Hospital in Delhi. She appeared for the UPSC exams multiple times and was inducted into the Indian Revenue Service (IRS) in 2019. However, Puja’s allotment is still pending.
Medical examination controversy
In November 2021, Puja applied for the job of assistant director in the Sports Authority of India and got the job. This year, she appeared for the UPSC exam again and got the rank of IRS. She applied under two reservation categories—one is OBC and the other is PWBD (benchmark disability category). She got the highest category of reservation in the disability category, Level 5.
Level 5 is for people who have multiple types of disabilities. Puja told UPSC that she has two disabilities—one, that she is visually impaired, and second, that she is mentally ill. Now the controversy begins. On April 22, 2022, after she cleared the UPSC exam, AIIMS hospital in New Delhi called Puja for a medical examination to confirm her disabilities. The duty officer of AIIMS called Pooja 6 times, but Pooja refused every time. She told that she has got COVID and she cannot get an MRI scan done.
Complications of medical checkup
Puja was to undergo an MRI scan at AIIMS to check if she was suffering from any vision loss in her eyes. But she refused to undergo the scan.
The Department of Personnel and Training (DOPT), the government department responsible for recruiting IAS officers, received a letter from AIIMS on September 22, 2022 stating that the candidate was not cooperating in the medical examination. Subsequently, on November 14, 2022, AIIMS wrote another letter to DOPT stating that Puja should not be granted candidature.
Puja filed her case in the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT). CAT is a government body that resolves disputes related to the recruitment of government officials. Advocate Vaibhav Kulkarni told CAT that his client Puja has a mental illness called claustrophobia, which prevents her from undergoing an MRI scan. Claustrophobia is the fear of closed spaces. Vaibhav argued that medical examination should be done in some other way instead of an MRI scan.
Legal Battles and Judgements
However, CAT refused to accept this argument. Following this, Puja approached the Bombay High Court. The Bombay High Court ruled in Puja’s favour. The lawyer said that the CAT examination be stopped and AIIMS New Delhi was ordered to conduct Puja’s medical checkup in a different manner. What happened after this is not known. According to the lawyer, Puja told that her medical checkup was completed and she had got clearance. According to the latest news, Puja got her MRI scan done at a private medical facility and submitted it to AIIMS. AIIMS did not conduct this examination, but the matter gradually hushed up. Puja started her training and became an Assistant Collector at the District Collector’s Office in Pune.
Posting Investigation and Controversy
An RTI activist investigated Puja’s posting and raised several questions. She was posted in Bhandara district, but how did she get the opportunity to train in Pune? To become an IAS, candidates who clear the UPSC exam have to undergo a probation period of 2 years, which is their training period. After the training, they have to pass an exam. If they clear the exam, they become permanent IAS officers. If a trainee fails the exam or does not follow the rules during the probation period, their probation is terminated.
Puja’s demands and pressure
This means that it may be difficult for Puja to get a job. Puja was supposed to start her training in Pune on June 3, 2024, but the problems started soon after. Pune’s district collector, Suhas Diwase, submitted a 25-page report to Maharashtra’s additional chief secretary, Nitin Gadre. The report stated that many of Puja’s demands started even before her posting. However, Puja’s demands had started before that, which the district collector was not aware of.
On May 18, 2024, Puja called Navi Mumbai’s deputy commissioner of police, Vivek Bansare, and said that he should release the man who was caught stealing steel. Despite this pressure, the Navi Mumbai police did not listen to Puja and the man is still in jail. There is no clear information yet about why Puja raised these demands. But it is true that she put pressure on the police before becoming an IAS officer. Pune District Collector Suhas Diwse rightly said that Puja had made several demands before her joining date.
Demand for special facilities and media attention
For example, you can see this screenshot on your screen. Here, Puja had demanded a cabin and accommodation from the Pune Collector’s Office on May 23, 10 days before her joining date. When she did not get a response, the next day Puja said, “Please respond, it is urgent.” An official replied, “It will be done, madam,” to which Puja
said, “It should be done before my arrival, not after my arrival.”
Pune District Collector wrote in his letter that when the Additional Collector went to Mumbai for 4 days, Puja took over his room. She demanded furniture and a letterhead and also got a board with her name put up outside the room. The same day, Puja’s father called the Tehsildar and threatened, “You are harassing my daughter.”
Family relations and property disputes
This case pertains to a woman officer and can have many consequences. Interestingly, Pooja had said in a mock interview that she has zero income as her parents are separated and she has no contact with her father. But the district collector wrote in his letter that her father had come to the district office on May 12 and 13 to work with Pooja. Pooja’s father, Dilip Khedkar, told the officials that they should give Pooja an office with an attached rest room. He also scolded them as to why the office was not ready before Pooja’s arrival.
Property and income details
Puja’s father, Dilip Khedkar, told the officials that electrical fittings in the office had to be changed and they could not go home until the work was over. Following this, Puja applied for a beacon, VIP number plate and Maharashtra government board for her private Audi A4 car. The district collector said that he has received many probationary officers for training, but no one ever demanded such facilities. In fact, probation officers do not even get such facilities. The matter came to the notice of the media when the district collector wrote a letter on it.
Transfer and notice
Following this controversy, the Maharashtra government transferred Puja to Washim district. She reached there in a simple Bolero and not in her private Audi. When cornered by the media, she said that as a government official she cannot say anything about the investigation. She told the media, “As I told you, I have no right to say anything to the media. I will make a submission as per the demand of the committee.” Puja also said that she is excited to join Washim district.
Delay in duty and OBC reservation
But Puja did not join her duty on time. On the third day of her duty, Washim District Collector, Buveneshwari S., said that she received the government’s order but Puja did not join her duty. Neither did she contact me nor any other officer. There are many twists in Puja’s story, one of them is how she got OBC reservation.
OBC reservation issue
In 1990, the government implemented many recommendations of the Mandal Commission, which provided 27% reservation in government institutions and jobs to the OBC community. But there were some conditions with this reservation. One condition was that your parents cannot be Group A or Group B officers in a government department and your annual income should not exceed Rs 8 lakh. Those who fulfil both these conditions are called “creamy layer”. You may be from OBC community, but if you are in privileged position, you do not get reservation. Reservation is only for non-creamy layer.
Fraud in property and income
RTI activist Vijay Kumbhar said that Puja’s father’s election affidavit mentions property worth Rs 40 crore. “Her annual income is Rs 43 lakh. She also owns 110 acres of agricultural land, 7 properties, 900 grams of gold, diamonds and a gold watch worth Rs 17 lakh. Despite this, she got reservation under the non-creamy layer OBC category. See this paper on the screen.
Interestingly, the website of DOPT, which is investigating Puja, states that Puja owns 7 properties in Ahmednagar and Pune, worth Rs 17 crore in total. And her annual income is Rs 48 lakh. Out of these, 2 properties were gifted to her by her mother and 5 she bought herself.
Despite this, DOPT gave her non-creamy layer OBC reservation. What is going on in our country? The government has now formed a panel to investigate Puja’s case and has also started an investigation against Puja’s father. But the story is not over yet.
Audi car and traffic police notice
Recently, Pune Traffic Police sent a notice to Pooja Khedkar stating that she used a beacon for her private Audi car and she has 21 pending challans, the total amount of which is Rs 27,000. When Pune Police went to her house to serve her the notice, they found 4 more vehicles along with an Audi car.
Problem of corruption in the system
But surprisingly, the next day of the notice, the Audi car disappeared from the house. Pooja Khedkar said in a funny interview that her income is zero. When a reporter asked, “Does your father work in a bank or somewhere else?” Pooja replied, “No sir, he is a government employee.” The reporter commented, “You have really shown zero income.”
You must know that an IAS officer can stay in the system for 30 years. Probably no one knows how many cases like Pooja will be there. For example, in Kerala in 2016, an IAS officer, Asif K. Yousuf, was accused of faking his income documents to get reservation under OBC non-creamy layer.
Pooja Singhal, who was the youngest IAS officer of our country, at the age of just 21, and who was being seen as the future of the country, was caught by the ED on 11 May 2022 in a money laundering case. Cash worth about Rs 19.5 crore was seized and it was found that she had diverted Rs 19 crore from the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme. She is still in custody.
Problems of IAS officers and role of government
Former IAS officer and RBI governor, D. Sabbarao, said that 25% of people in IAS offices are either corrupt, incompetent or inefficient. The real problem is that it is not easy to investigate against IAS officers as it requires permission from the government. Sometimes, the government refuses. In April 2022, the CBI wanted to investigate some IAS officers who were involved in a Rs 2200 crore PF scam, but the UP government refused to give permission. A senior IAS officer said that IAS officers have such good connections that even if any allegation is made against them, they use their connections to stop the investigation.
According to the government’s own data, between 2016 and 2019, they have received 2500 corruption complaints against IAS officers and civil servants. And guess, how many of those 2500 have been punished? Only two IAS officers.
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