Even one egregious violation of the rule can cast shade on the entire process. In what has emerged as the outlandish tale of Puja Khedkar, the multiple methods by which she stepped outside the law would be fantastic, if they had not been proven true. However, having pulled wool over the eyes of the entire Union Public Service Commission recruitment infrastructure, by conniving and scheming, it is a scene too chilling for comfort. She claimed mental illness, and visual impairment, faked a community certificate, used a disability certificate to get chosen, having scored a rank that would have otherwise put her out of the reckoning. Meanwhile, the hospital in Pune which issued her a disability certificate said it had certified a 7% locomotor disability and that would have been practically useless in gaining concessions, as a higher degree of disability was required to benefit. Considering how persons with a true disability must jump through hoops to merely get the disability certification, her ease of getting the certificate while faking disability, raises the question: are some more equal than others? She milked the privilege stemming from her father’s position in the civil services to commandeer a series of benefits that she might have otherwise had no access to. Contributing to her infamy is her fabricated OBC certificate; using multiple identities to write the tests, claiming falsely that her parents were divorced to overcome the creamy layer exclusion criteria. The scarier fact is that none of this would have come to light had Khedkar not indulged flamboyantly in perks not assigned to her station as a probationer — she installed a beacon on her private luxury sedan and illegally stuck a Maharashtra government sticker on it. She will soon receive an order cancelling her candidature.
It has admittedly not been a good year for qualification examinations in the country, with controversies dogging medical admissions with NEET UG, NEET PG and the Common University Entrance Test (CUET) for admission into central universities. There is no merit in arguing that she might be just one aberration, because her excesses and those of her parents’ have happened as the UPSC remained completely oblivious and unable to detect fraud. This is not excusable. The government now needs to ensure that the entire competitive examination system receives a thorough overhaul. Administrators and systems must not be gullible or unequipped to meet new challenges thrown up by contestants and emerging technology. Meanwhile, with this incident as the peg, the government must cast its eye on the disability certification process, making sure that genuine applicants are fairly dealt with.
