Breaking News: IAS Pooja Khedkar Fired! UPSC Takes BIG STEP Amid Rising Questions

Pooja Khedkar’s provisional candidature for the CSE-2022 has been canceled, and she has been permanently debarred from all future Examinations/Selections of the UPSC.

The UPSC stated that it neither has the mandate nor the means to verify the authenticity of thousands of certificates submitted by candidates each year. "However, it is understood that scrutiny and verification of the genuineness of certificates are carried out by the authorities mandated with this task."

In the unique case of Ms. Pooja Khedkar, the Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) of the UPSC could not detect her number of attempts primarily because she changed not only her name but also her parents’ names. The UPSC is in the process of further strengthening the SOP to ensure that such a case does not recur in the future, the Commission said in a statement.

In light of the Pooja Khedkar case, the UPSC has thoroughly examined the available data of more than 15,000 finally recommended candidates of the CSEs from 2009 to 2023, i.e., for 15 years, with respect to the number of attempts availed by them. After this detailed exercise, barring the case of Pooja Manorama Dilip Khedkar, no other candidate has been found to have availed more attempts than permitted under the CSE Rules.