Editorial: Scummy layer of the IAS

CHENNAI: Episodes of our elites helping themselves to extra servings on India’s gravy train are all too common and figure in the news for no more than a day or two. Going by that yardstick, the whole litany of illegalities carried out by IAS trainee Puja Khedkar in Maharashtra is exceptional. It has dominated the headlines for weeks. It speaks of a well-honed talent for criminality, rare for someone just starting out in her career, and suggests an inexorable homing instinct for power.

Even before she reported for duty as an IAS trainee at the Pune district collector’s office, Khedkar demanded an exclusive cabin, a red-beaconed official car, and clerical staff. Told that she was not eligible for such appurtenances of office just yet, she did the routine elite thing of bringing into the conversation her father, a former high officer of the Maharashtra government and an election candidate who had declared Rs 40 crore as his net worth. The parent intervened to negotiate on her behalf. Too impatient to wait, Khedkar occupied a well-appointed cabin, got a red beacon fixed to her Audi car and declared her ‘IAS’ status on its number plate.

It turned out that the novice chanced her arm too much. When her case was referred higher up, the bizarre series of sleights she had carried out to get into the Civil Services was discovered. These included false claims of disability to access the quota for the handicapped, altering her name and her parents’ names so as to write the Civil Services exam more times than permitted, repeatedly refusing to submit herself to disability verification by the mandated authority and then submitting her own verification.

Most seriously, she eluded the creamy layer criterion for the Other Backward Classes (OBC) quota by going to extraordinary lengths to hide her parents’ income. If all that were not serious enough, a plethora of bent rules and false declarations by other IAS probationers and negligent oversight by the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) have tumbled out as a result of the scrutiny of this case. How could Khedkar dodge disability verification by AIIMS no less than five times? How did her self-produced verification pass muster with the UPSC? Why did the commission’s processes fail to detect Khedkar’s name fraud? How did she get past Central Administrative Tribunal proceedings despite her cartload of dodgy documents?

UPSC chairman Manoj Soni resigned last week, apparently for personal reasons, without acknowledging any responsibility for this sorry state of affairs. While the commission has filed an FIR against Khedkar, it has still not acknowledged that its processes have been compromised. This amounts to flamboyant disregard for the thousands of young men and women who cram for the Civil Services examination in the hope of landing a secure government job. It is a cruel betrayal of candidates truly deservant of disability and OBC quotas.

The worst consequence of this case is the damage done to the credibility of our reservation policy. This laughable heist gives an opportunity for sections hostile to reservations to portray it as a failed policy that disregards ‘merit’ while only serving the well-heeled among OBCs. Conversely, it deepens the suspicions harboured by disadvantaged sections that cases like these are being brought to light only to build an alibi for rolling back reservations. Either way, this foments social divisions that the nation can do without.