Pooja Khedkar and the banality of a gamed system

Pooja Khedkar, an IAS probationer, has been in news recently for all the wrong reasons. The Maharashtra State Government and its various instrumentalities, the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) and the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration (LBSNAA) have also figured in the related news stories.

Several news anchors are frothing at the mouth on the alleged incompetence of the UPSC in allowing her to commit the said fraud, so much so that the resignation submitted by the Chairman of the UPSC quite some time back is also being linked to this.

In this entire brouhaha, a number of uncomfortable questions seem to have got missed. This IAS trainee officer had been throwing her weight around during her practical training in the office of Collector, Pune, driving around in a private luxury car with an illegal beacon, and demanding orderlies, office and all other paraphernalia of the district satrapies that the posts of the District Collector and the Superintendent of Police are. 

Till the media reports started coming out, why did the Collector Pune not control her? As her trainer in practical district training, was he not supposed to first counsel and then if it failed, take suitable punitive action? Every IAS/IPS probationer undergoing practical training is supposed to be attached to a senior officer in the Academy who is supposed to be their counsellor throughout their training. What was the counsellor of LBSNAA doing? She was first transferred to Washim by the State and then recalled from practical training by LBSNAA much after the news uproar.

Her father retired from Maharashtra Pollution Control Board in 2020. He was suspended twice for allegations of corruption. The Anti-Corruption Bureau, Pune is now probing allegations of Disproportionate Assets against him. How is it that the agency could not put him in the ‘agreed list’ of suspect officers despite his lavish lifestyle and blatant corruption, subject him to surveillance, investigation and prosecution while he was in service?

Her mother has been arrested now for using her licenced weapon to threaten some people in 2022. Why did the police have to do this now? Because the old video of her brandishing the weapon surfaced now? But she had threatened officials including police personnel! How is it that the police did not book her then but are now booking her not only for misusing her licenced weapon but also ‘attempt to murder’?

The encroachment on the pavement outside her family home has been removed now after a notice was served by the Municipal Corporation. Did the Corporation’s enforcement wing not see the encroachment before she came in the cross hairs of the news cycle?

She secured medical certificates for physical disability for vision as well as mental disability? She was given four opportunities to appear before a Medical Board in 2022 which she did not avail? How did she suddenly get the appointment on grounds of disability? Have the doctors who issued the certificates been questioned? Her father declared an annual income of Rs 43 lakhs and assets over 40 crores in his 2024 Lok Sabha election affidavit? How did she secure the non-creamy layer OBC certificate from the Tehsildar?

The UPSC has lodged an FIR against her for writing the exam repeatedly by changing her name, photos and ID? Hasn’t the biometric-based Aadhaar been available since 2010? UPSC has plenipotentiary powers to maintain the sanctity of the Civil Services Exam and for the size and scale of the exercise it undertakes every year, there has been remarkably little scope of impugning its selection process so far. 

How is it that it could not leverage Aadhaar to ensure that candidates could not do what she did? A Candidate, once selected, is subjected to a Special Branch enquiry. Typically, a Head Constable from the Special Branch of the district or City Police would visit the neighbourhood and verify the antecedents of the candidate and confirm whether she is involved in any criminal case. 

However, this enquiry is rarely able to find out extra-territorial criminal antecedents. Be that as it may, what prevents the UPSC and the Department of Personnel & Training or the Ministry of Home Affairs to do a deep dive only into the certificates submitted by the selected candidates? 

This process needs to be completed only before declaration of their probation! Education certificates can be collated and sent in bunch to an educational institution. Caste certificates and physical disability certificates can be verified by state-level panels. The Government has now set up a panel to look into her certificates. Shouldn’t this be the norm, especially where any extra benefit has been taken based on a certificate?
Lant Pritchett had called India a Flailing State- where a capable Head is not in complete control of its Arms and Legs that are supposed to implement its directive. The tragedy of Indian Administration does not lie in the apex that comprises some very dedicated and world class people and institutions. It lies near the Coalface where the Station House Officer, the Patwari, the Tehsildar, the Assistant Engineer, the government doctor, the government teacher deal with the mango man. The casual apathy and corruption are a part of the social fabric at this level and people like the Khedkars who game the system are as banal as breathing.
The New York Police Department (NYPD) had set up the Knapp Commission to probe its corruption in 1970. The commission had classified corrupt cops into two categories – the grass eaters, who indulged in petty corruption, grazing on whatever was on offer; and the meat eaters, who indulged in outright extortion and looked for ways to make money illegally, i.e. hunt for their prey.

One suspects that had Pooja Khedkar continued to keep her head down, keep grazing, and not try to hunt before her time, she too would have continued to have a career and go on to bigger things. In that sense, she and her family are paying not for their hubris and alleged assorted crimes, but for impatience!

(Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own and do not reflect those of DNA)