Delhi court rejects anticipatory bail request of former trainee IAS officer Puja Khedkar

Delhi's Patiala House Court on Thursday dismissed the anticipatory bail plea of Puja Khedkar, a trainee IAS officer. She is accused of using fraudulent means to pass the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) examination.

The UPSC on Wednesday said it has cancelled the provisional candidature Khedkar and debarred her from all future examinations or selections.

"The UPSC has examined the available records carefully and found her guilty of acting in contravention of the provisions of the CSE-2022 Rules," the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) said in a statement.


The commission said it was the "lone case" of Khedkar in the last 15 years where it could not detect that a candidate has exceeded the number of attempts permitted to a candidate for writing the CSE exam "primarily due to the fact that she changed not only her name but also her parents' name".

It said the UPSC was in the process of "further strengthening the SOP to ensure that such a case does not recur in the future."

The commission said a show-cause notice was issued to Puja Manorama Dilip Khedkar on July 18 for "fraudulently" availing attempts beyond the permissible limit in the examination by "faking" her identity.

She was asked to submit her response to the notice by July 25 but she requested time till August 4 to gather the necessary documents for her response, it said.

The UPSC granted her a "final opportunity" to submit her response by 3:30 pm on July 30 but she "failed to submit her explanation within the prescribed time", the commission said.

The commission said in the backdrop of the case of Khedkar, it "thoroughly examined" the data of more than 15,000 "finally recommended candidates" from the civil services exams for the last 15 years (2009-2023) 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.