Mumbai:

The parents of trainee IAS officer Puja Khedkar, who faces allegations of using fake certificates to claim relaxation in the civil service selection process, cannot be reached.

Manorama Khedkar, Ms Khedkar’s mother and sarpanch of a Maharashtra village, is facing an Arms Act case after a video showed her brandishing a pistol during an argument. Her husband and Puja Khedkar’s father Dilip Khedkar, who is a retired Maharashtra government officer, is a co-accused in the case.

When police visited their home in connection with the probe, they did not find the couple. Three teams have now been formed to track them down. The teams are looking for them in Mumbai, Pune and Ahmednagar. Police said they have not been cooperating in the probe.

The video featuring Manorama Khedkar surfaced amid the row over her daughter’s misuse of power and alleged irregularities in her selection for civil service. The video showed Manorama Khedkar, sarpanch of Bhalgaon village, threatening some people with the gun, reportedly over a land dispute. After the video went viral, a case was registered and Manorama Khedkar asked why she was misusing the licensed firearm.

To add to Khedkars’ troubles, the Pune civic body has issued a notice to Manorama Khedkar, asking her to remove “unauthorised structures” next to their bungalow’s boundary wall within a week.

How It All Began

On June 24, Pune collector Dr Suhas Diwase wrote to Maharashtra Chief Secretary Sujata Saunik about the many demands of Puja Khedkar, a trainee IAS officer of the 2023 batch. Ms Khedkar, he said, had been demanding a separate cabin, a car, residential quarters and a peon before she joined work at the collectorate. The collector pointed out that she is on a two-year probation and is not entitled to these benefits. Ms Khedkar was also accused of removing the nameplate of a senior official at the collector’s office when he was on leave. Amid the row, Ms Khedkar was transferred to Washim as a supernumerary assistant collector. On the day she took charge, she told the media that she is not authorised to comment on the allegations against her.

Tip Of Iceberg

The Pune Collector’s letter and the transfer started a series of big revelations about the young trainee IAS officer. The trainee officer, it emerged, had been using a red-blue beacon on her private Audi car. She was also accused of misusing the UPSC’s relaxations for candidates with disabilities, and from the OBC category. It also came to the fore that the UPSC had challenged her appointment before the Central Administrative Tribunal and her selected was suspended. However, she was later granted appointment under the OBC and Multiple Disability categories. Questions are now also being raised on why the UPSC made a U-turn on its earlier stand. The Centre has now formed a single-member committee to probe the matter.

Father’s Defence

Before he became unreachable, Puja Khedkar’s father Dilip told a TV channel that she had done nothing illegal. He stressed that Puja belongs to the non-creamy layer of OBC. A person with a family income of more than Rs 8 lakh per annum is considered to be from the creamy layer and is not eligible for reservation benefits.

Even if a person with limited means owns 4-5 acres of land, the valuation might show he is worth several crores, Dilip Khedkar said. “The classification as creamy-layer depends on income rather than (property) valuation,” he added.

Responding to the allegations that the 34-year-old trainee officer used a private luxury car with a VIP number plate and red-blue beacon, he said she had taken permission. “She used the luxury car for official work because no government vehicle was available. She did that with proper permission from her seniors in the administration,” he said.

Mumbai:

The father of controversial probationary IAS officer Puja Khedkar, accused of using fake disability and OBC certificates to clear the civil services exam, defended her on Sunday, stressing that she hadn’t done anything illegal.

Puja recently came under intense media glare after she kicked up a controversy with her alleged demands for a separate cabin and staff during her posting in Pune and her abrupt transfer to Washim district.

She then faced more allegations of securing a position in the IAS by taking the civil services exam under the Other Backward Class (OBC) – with less than Rs 8 lakh annual income – and visually impaired categories and submitting a mental illness certificate.

Her father and former Maharashtra government employee Dilip Khedkar, who contested the Lok Sabha elections and had declared property worth Rs 40 crore in his poll affidavit, told a Marathi news channel on Sunday that she indeed belongs to the non-creamy layer.

Even if a person with limited means owns 4-5 acres of land, the valuation might show that he is worth several crores, he said. “However, the classification as creamy-layer depends on income rather than (property) valuation,” Dilip said. About the 34-year-old officer’s alleged misuse of power, including the use of a private luxury car with a VIP number plate and red-blue beacon, during her tenure at the Pune collector’s office, Dilip said she had taken permission for everything.

“She used the luxury car for official work because no government vehicle was available. She did that with proper permission from her seniors in the administration. The car belongs to her relative. She did not cheat anyone by putting a beacon on it,” Dilip said.

The police on Sunday confiscated the luxury car of Audi.

Among the allegations against Puja is that she removed the nameplate of a senior official at the Pune collector’s office when he allowed her to use his ante-chamber as her office.

“She used the cabin with the proper permission from her senior. Is it anywhere written that a young intern woman IAS should not be given a separate cabin? If it is written, then I will make her resign from her job,” Dilip said.

About the allegations of misuse of disability certificates, Dilip said the government establishes a benchmark to determine a person’s disability, and his daughter meets the criteria.

“Many disabilities are not visible but are identified through medical tests. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, she missed some check-ups,” he said.

In April 2022, Puja was asked to report at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Delhi for verification of her disability certificate but she did not do so, citing COVID infection, an official had said earlier.

The Centre has constituted a single-member committee for re-examining documents submitted by Puja to secure her candidature in the civil services examination and then for IAS selection.

The 2023 batch IAS officer is under probation and currently posted in her home cadre Maharashtra.

Dilip also defended Puja’s mother Manorama who was seen in an old video allegedly threatening some persons with a gun over a land dispute. Police have registered a case against Dilip and Manorama over the matter.

“The media and others are showing only one video clip. The day before that incident, a local aggressively approached her with a stick. In such a situation, should she have stayed silent? She possesses a licence to carry the gun for self-defence,” Dilip said.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)