New Delhi: The Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) earlier this month filed a case against 2023-batch IAS officer Puja Khedkar, and served her a show cause notice for cancellation of her candidature from the civil services exam, 2022.
Khedkar is one of the civil service officers to have recently come under scrutiny for ‘misuse of power’. She came under the scanner for allegedly demanding perks which trainee or relatively junior civil servants are not entitled to, including an official chamber with adequate staff and an official car with a VIP number plate.
She is also under scrutiny for alleged wrongful submission of disability certificates.
Asked for his views on the matter, V.S. Dubey, former chief secretary of Bihar and Jharkhand, told ThePrint, “There is a huge difference between the past and present. Today’s IAS officers want to become millionaires overnight. This greed is not good for the service.”
Citing the Khedkar case, Dubey said, “When we were trainees, the collector had given us a room in the circuit house and we used to go to the collectorate daily on foot or by rickshaw.”
Serving IAS officers ThePrint spoke to said these cases, though rare, are a blot on the civil services. “All officers are not corrupt but because of wrongdoings of a few, names of IAS, IPS are maligned. New joinees in service have very big ambitions and do not strike a balance between power and responsibility,” said a Bihar-cadre IAS officer.
Here, ThePrint looks at notable cases of IAS or IPS officers being accused of misusing or flaunting their power, or violating service rules.
Also read: In race for Haryana chief secretary’s post, 3 IAS officers seek revision in seniority list
Geromic George
In May this year, Thiruvananthapuram district collector Geromic George — a 2015-batch IAS officer — courted controversy after government doctors expressed their disapproval of him insisting that a doctor treat him for a nail fungal infection at his home.
This demand, they said, was made when at least 200 patients were waiting in the outpatient department (OPD) of the hospital.
The Kerala Government Medical Officers Association termed it an ‘abuse of power’, after which the chief secretary of Kerala sought a detailed report from the secretary of the health department on this issue. The government later cleared George of the charge.
Akash Patel
In October 2023, UP cadre IPS officer Akash Patel was accused of assaulting a constable at Maharajpur police station in Kanpur.
In his complaint, the constable had alleged that Patel called him to his room, asked him to squat as punishment and then assaulted him.
As the matter escalated, Patel was transferred.
Girdhar, Sushil Kumar
Seven people, including an IAS officer and an IPS officer were suspended in June last year for allegedly getting into a brawl at a hotel in Ajmer.
An interim inquiry report by the police department later confirmed that IAS officer Girdhar and IPS officer Sushil Kumar had assaulted the staffers of an eatery.
At the time of the incident, Girdhar was commissioner of the Ajmer Development Authority, while Kumar had been transferred as officer on special duty (OSD) to Gangpur City.
Amit Lodha
Bihar IPS officer Amit Lodha, who came into the limelight after the release of the web series Khaki: The Bihar Chapter, was suspended in December 2022 on charges of corruption and allegedly entering into a business deal with the OTT platform Netflix while in government service. A case was also registered against him.
A 1994-batch IAS officer Sanjeev Khirwar and his wife Rinku Dugga were transferred in 2023. They were accused of ordering the emptying of Delhi’s Thyagaraj Stadium so that they could walk their dog. Dugga was transferred to Arunachal Pradesh and her husband to Ladakh.
Abhishek Singh
Another case of alleged abuse of power by a civil servant is that of IAS officer Abhishek Singh. The Election Commission of India (ECI) appointed him as a general observer for the 2022 Gujarat assembly elections. But he ended up posting pictures of his assignment on Instagram. Within a day, the poll panel shunted out the 2011-batch IAS officer of the Uttar Pradesh cadre for pulling what it termed a “publicity stunt”.
Among those now under scrutiny is Singh, who has been accused of furnishing a fake disability certificate to gain entry into civil services through the locomotor disability (LD) category. However, Singh quit the civil services last year and has since been featured in music videos alongside actors Sunny Leone and Adah Sharma, among others.
Last week, he took to X (formerly Twitter) to counter allegations against him that his father, a former IPS officer, somehow helped him become a civil servant.
Ranbir Sharma
One such case had also come to light in 2021 when Ranbir Sharma, a 2012-batch IAS officer of the Chhattisgarh cadre, was caught on camera slapping a young man and smashing the person’s phone for allegedly violating Covid-19 lockdown guidelines.
The then Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel had ordered Sharma’s immediate removal as Surajpur district collector.
Sreeram Tiwari
In May 2012, 1982-batch IPS officer of Andhra Pradesh cadre Sreeram Tiwari was dismissed from service on charges of misuse of office. UPSC had recommended his removal. The allegations against Tiwari were of misuse of office and indulging in certain acts which brought disrepute to the service.
Tiwari’s name was also involved in a controversy surrounding Gallantry medals, which was that despite not being present at the site of an encounter when it occurred, he received a medal for the encounter.
Also Read: How ‘house for Mr Das’ led to arrest of ex-TN special DGP amid running feud with estranged IAS wife
‘Erroneous’ documents
The Puja Khedkar case also brought into focus the use of questionable documents by aspiring civil servants, as well as their selection through quotas.
In 2020, the Centre had sought action against 2016-batch IAS officer Asif Yusuf of the Kerala cadre for furnishing an Other Backward Class (OBC) certificate and income certificates found to be “erroneous and incorrect”.
In a letter to the chief secretary of Kerala, Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) sought action against Yusuf under relevant sections of the Indian Administrative Service (Probation) Rules, 1954, and the All India Services (Discipline And Appeal) Rules, 1969.
In a similar case in 2009, Sanjay Bhatia, an IPS officer of the 1986 batch, was sentenced to 100 days in jail and asked to pay a penalty of Rs 1 lakh for securing his appointment using a false SC certificate. He was held guilty in 2005 by a magistrate, following which he appealed in sessions court. But his plea was dismissed. In his case, the judge said he deceived the UPSC and enjoyed a wrongful gain for himself.
“In the 1990s, when many reservation quotas were introduced, people started getting certificates changing their category to take advantage. This is not the first case. This has happened many times and it has been happening in every All India Service,” Dubey, quoted earlier, told ThePrint in response to a question about misuse of quotas.
According to Dubey, unless action is taken against the very act of procurement of fake certificates, such cases will continue to come to light.
Under the system that exists today, 27 percent of seats in the civil services are reserved for OBCs, 15 percent for Scheduled Castes (SCs), 7.5 percent for Scheduled Tribes (STs), 10 percent for Economically Weaker Sections (EWS), and 4 percent for Persons with Benchmark Disabilities (PwBD). The reservation policy for persons with disability aligns with The Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016.
Data available in the public domain indicates that 21 people were selected through various disability quotas in 2018, 27 in 2019, 18 in 2020, 14 in 2021, and 28 in 2022. Disability quotas include Visual Impairment (VI), Hearing Impairment (VI), Locomotor Disability, Cerebral Palsy (LDCP) and Multiple Disabilities (MD).
After Khedkar’s case, the disability certificates of four Gujarat cadre IAS officers also came under the scanner. According to a Times of India report, of the four officers, three are junior ranked, and one is a senior officer currently in a key post. The Gujarat government is conducting an investigation to check the authenticity of their disability certificates.
A 2021-batch IAS officer, Priyanshu Khati, who relied on the Orthopedically Handicapped quota to enter the civil services, is also under the lens.
According to Ayussh Sanghi, an educator helping UPSC aspirants, many eyewitnesses claim that Khati is completely fit, as evidenced by numerous posts on social media. However, Khati locked his Instagram account after the allegations surfaced.
3) Priyanhu Khati (IAS)
Batch – 2021
Quota: General (Otrhopedically Handicaped)
They were recruited under the OH (Orthopedically Handicapped) category, and many eyewitnesses claim that the person is completely fit, as evidenced by numerous posts on social media. pic.twitter.com/F3Bjh0eQpC
— Ayussh Sanghi (@ayusshsanghi) July 15, 2024
Similarly, in 2022, a 2009-batch Delhi, Andaman and Nicobar Islands Police Service (DANIPS) cadre officer was suspended over allegations of forging documents in the UPSC examination. He was accused of using educational qualifications and date of birth documents belonging to another person with the same name. The officer was suspended.
And in 2019, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) filed a case against 2007-batch IRS officer Navneet Kumar. He was accused of appearing in the UPSC exam using the identity of another person. He was also accused of submitting fake birth and educational certificates.
The CBI found that Kumar, a resident of Bihar’s Bettiah, had adopted the identity of one Rajesh Kumar Sharma.
(Edited by Radifah Kabir)