The Centre has formed a committee to verify “candidature claims and other details” submitted by trainee IAS officer Puja Khedkar, who has been accused of misusing disability and OBC quota to secure a position in the service.

The 2023-batch trainee IAS officer is also at the centre of a massive allegations of impropriety and misuse of her position as a bureaucrat.

The single-member committee will submit its report in two weeks.

“The central government has constituted a single-member committee, chaired by a senior officer of the rank of Additional Secretary to government of India to verify the candidature claims and other details of Ms. Puja Manorma Dilip Khedkar, a candidate of Civil Services Examination-2022 and earlier CSEs. The committee will submit its report in 2 weeks,” the Department of Personnel and Training in a statement.

It is alleged that Ms Khedkar, who is on probation for 24 months, had been using a red-blue beacon, VIP number plates and a “Government of Maharashtra” sticker on her privately-owned Audi sedan.

The officer exchanged multiple WhatsApp messages with the Pune Collector’s office before her posting and demanded confirmation of her “seating arrangement and vehicle”.

Amid an escalating row, Ms Khedkar has been transferred to Washim.

“Government rules do not allow me to speak anything on this matter. So sorry, I cannot speak,” said Ms Khedkar responding to the media’s queries this morning.

It has emerged that she claimed to be a visually and mentally impaired candidate to seek concession, but did not undergo a mandatory medical test for confirmation.

Pune RTI activist Vijay Kumbhar also raised questions about Ms Khedkar’s appointment alleging that she did not fall under the OBC non-creamy layer as her father had assets worth Rs 40 crore.

“As per the rules, only those come under the OBC non-creme layer category whose parents are under 8 lac per annum of income, but their income shows that it is 40 crore. Her parents contested the recent Lok Sabha polls and all the property details are there in the affidavit,” said Mr Kumbhar.

“This raises the question of how Puja Khedkar could come under the OBC non-creamy layer category. A detailed investigation must be done on how she was appointed as an IAS officer in that category,” he said.

She had ranked 841 in the all-India exam — an unimpressive rank. In fact, the Union Public Service Commission that recruits top civil servants had challenged her selection, and a tribunal ruled against her in February 2023.

New Delhi:

Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge Tuesday accused the government of using the Army “politically” for elections and claimed the ruling party has hurt its dignity by “capitalising on the popularity of soldiers”.

He claimed the Narendra Modi government has asked the Army to set up selfie points across the country where its schemes will be promoted instead of the bravery of soldiers.

“By capitalising on the popularity of the brave soldiers of our Indian Army who protect the nation, Modi ji is promoting himself. By politically using the army for elections, the Modi government has done something which has never happened in the last 75 years,” Mr Kharge alleged in a post in Hindi on X.

The Modi government has asked the Army to set up 822 selfie points across the country to promote government schemes. There, instead of the story of the bravery of the soldiers, “there is an idol-like image of Prime Minister Modi and praises of his schemes”, the Congress president alleged in the post.

“The Indian National Congress is extremely proud of the bravery and sacrifice of the Indian Army. The BJP, which gives lessons of nationalism, has hurt the dignity of the Indian Army,” Mr Kharge claimed. 

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

New Delhi:

No other body other than the Union Government can conduct a caste census, the Supreme Court was told today. The Centre, in an affidavit, asserted that the Census Act, 1948, empowers only the Government to conduct the census. The move is a challenge to the Bihar government which in an earlier hearing informed the Supreme Court that an exercise of conducting surveys of the caste census in Bihar was conducted by August 6 and the data gathered uploaded by August 12.

The Supreme Court, on August 21, had allowed Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, representing the Centre, to file its response on the issue within seven days after he said the survey could have some consequences. Today was the seventh day.

Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Yadav has hit out at the Centre for filing the affidavit. They have no knowledge. They only know how to lie and suppress the truth. They have opposed it even in the affidavit. It has been made clear that the BJP does not want it (caste census) and is opposing it. If they support it, then they should conduct it (caste census) across the country,” he said

Senior BJP leader and former deputy Chief Minister of Bihar Sushil Modi, however, said that his party supports caste census but “according to the Census Act, only the Centre can conduct a caste survey.”

The Government said that it is committed to taking all affirmative actions for the “upliftment of SCS/STS/SEBCs and OBCs in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution of India and the applicable law.”

Various petitions have been moved in the Supreme Court challenging the Patna High Court judgment upholding the caste survey ordered by the Bihar Government.

In the August 21 hearing, the top court told the petitioners that it will not stay the exercise unless they made out a prima facie case against it.

The Patna High Court had earlier dismissed the pleas challenging the Nitish Kumar government’s decision to conduct the survey based on castes. The high court had said in its 101-page verdict, “We find the action of the state to be perfectly valid, initiated with due competence with the legitimate aim of providing development with justice….”

The Bihar caste survey would cover an estimated population of 12.70 crores in an estimated 2.58 crore households in 38 districts, which have 534 blocks and 261 urban local bodies. Chief Minister NItish Kumar insists that the caste survey would be beneficial for all sections of the society.