The Delhi High Court has denied anticipatory bail to sacked trainee IAS officer Puja Khedkar, accused of lying to the UPSC by faking physical disabilities and forging documents to clear her Civil Services Examination. The Court also vacated the interim protection from arrest granted to her.
The order was passed on Monday by a single-judge bench of Justice Chandra Dhari Singh. The court said that her ‘conduct was purely driven with a motive to dupe the UPSC and all documents allegedly forged by her were done to reap benefits of schemes meant for the (disadvantaged) groups of the society.’
Her bail plea was opposed both by the Delhi Police and the UPSC. The police submitted that Khedkar’s custody was needed to interrogate her and unearth the involvement of others in the commission of the offence.
The government discharged Pooja from the elite service finding her ‘ineligible’ for the job, a month after the UPSC had cancelled her candidature for Civil Services Examination held in 2022, following allegations of forgery and misconduct.
The Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) issued an order on September 6, formally discharging her from the IAS with immediate effect. The action had been taken under Rule 12 of IAS (Probation) Rules, 1954 — which provides for the discharge of a probationer found to be ineligible — with immediate effect.
Besides faking her physical disabilities, Pooja Khedkar had also been found guilty of hiding her real identity by changing her name from Puja Diliprao Khedkar to Puja Manorama Dilip Khedkar to appear for the examination beyond the maximum number of attempts allowed. Not only this, she went on to change the names of her parents as well in order to corroborate her fraudulently changed identity.
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