NEW DELHI: The Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) has annulled Puja Khedkar’s provisional candidacy and banned her from participating in any future exams. Khedkar, who was a provisional candidate for the Civil Services Examination 2022 (CSE-2022), faced these actions after allegations of falsifying her application details.

The UPSC discovered that Khedkar had altered both her own name and her parents' names in her application, which led to undetected discrepancies. In response to this issue, the Commission is working on strengthening its standard operating procedures (SOP) to prevent similar cases in the future.

Previously, the UPSC had filed a police complaint against Khedkar for allegedly misrepresenting her identity to exceed the permissible number of attempts for the civil services exam. On Wednesday, the UPSC announced that Khedkar was issued a show cause notice (SCN) for fraudulently utilizing attempts beyond the allowed limit.

Khedkar was given a deadline of July 25, 2024, to respond to the SCN. However, she requested an extension until August 4, 2024, to gather necessary documents. The UPSC granted her an extension until 3:30 p.m. on July 30, 2024, with a clear warning that no further extensions would be granted.

Despite this additional time, Khedkar did not submit her response within the deadline. The Delhi Police Crime Branch had previously charged her on July 19 for allegedly abusing disability and Other Backward Class (non-creamy layer) quotas to gain her examination position.

The UPSC clarified that it conducts only preliminary checks of certificates related to OBC and PwBD categories. This includes verifying the authenticity of the issuing authority, certificate year, issuing date, and format. The UPSC does not have the resources to validate the authenticity of thousands of certificates each year.

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