22 more bogus UPSC officials across India?

Pune-based RTI Activist Vijay Kumbhar shot to fame when he filed an RTI petition against former IAS probationer Puja Khedkar, claiming that she used fake OBC non-creamy layer & PwD (people with disabilities) certificates to get selected into the IAS. The rest is history, as nationwide outrage forced the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) to take cognisance of the issue, conduct an investigation and eventually debar Puja Khedkar from the Indian Administration Service, while filing a case against her in the court of law. In the wake of this controversy, we also witnessed the resignation of UPSC chairman Manoj Soni.

But Vijay Kumbhar is not yet done with his streak of activism against misuse of reservations in elite government services. He alleges that there are atleast 22 more officers like Puja Khedkar, who have forged certificates to avail reservations on fraudulent grounds. He had published his findings in a report titled “UPSC files: A Saga Of Forgery”, which contains names of all these officers, along with how and which reservation they misused.

Names in this report include IFS officer Aakash “Sharma”, who availed ST reservation, Khatri Vishal Dinanath who “qualified” for the EWS (Economically Weaker Section) quota despite being an IIT pass out who worked in a top consulting group for four years before joining civil services and Snehal Purushottam, a Gujarat-cadre IAS officer, who availed disability quota by claiming to have a hearing disability— despite video evidence of Snehal being able to hear and speak existing in the public domain. The report mainly lists out misuse of EWS quota, with some notable examples of positions “earned” on grounds of ST & PwD quotas.

Along with names of the 22 officers and the specific reservations they have seemed to abuse, Vijay Kumbhar also listed out the various deleterious impacts of these fraudulent acts in detail. The report states that the misuse of fake certificates is a direct violation of Article 14 (Right to Equality) & Article 16 (Right to Opportunity) of the Constitution. He also writes that crimes of this nature erode public trust in government institutions, aids in mismanagement of public funds and poses severe legal and regulatory risks to UPSC. He also states that these incidents undermine justice, severely demoralise aspirants and grab opportunities away from deserving candidates like Kartik Kansal, an ISRO scientist with muscular dystrophy who had not been allotted a service despite clearing UPSC four times.

As of now, these UPSC files are publicly available. It remains to be seen if the government will act upon these allegations and clean up all the rot growing right under their noses.