The sad tale of an IAS probationer

PUJA Khedkar got an all-India rank of 821 in the UPSC examination of 2022, yet she was selected for the IAS, the premier civil service in the country. No wonder the standards have fallen. Should there not be a cut-off point below which entry to the IAS, at least, not be allowed?

I have come across many entrants to the IAS and the IPS who have joined the services with the express purpose of enriching themselves through irregular and illegal means.

Khedkar belongs to the Vanjari community, which predominates in Bheed district of Marathwada and is prominent in the adjoining Ahmednagar district of western Maharashtra. The community is essentially pastoral and is classified as OBC (Other Backward Classes). Gopinath Munde, former Deputy Chief Minister of Maharashtra, hailed from this community.

There is another community with a deceptively similar name, Banjara, located prominently in Kinwat taluka of Nanded district in Marathwada and in the adjoining taluka in Yavatmal district of Vidarbha. The Banjaras were nomads till very recently. Hence, they have been classified as tribals and are entitled to reservation under the Scheduled Tribes category, which is allotted 7.5 per cent of the government jobs as against the 15 per cent quota enjoyed by Scheduled Castes.

The OBCs were included in the reservation pool after the Mandal Commission report, which was accepted during the Prime Ministership of VP Singh. The OBCs, being numerically larger, have been allotted 27 per cent of the vacancies in government jobs.

The criterion of the ‘creamy layer’ was conceptualised to keep out those in the reserved categories who had gained from reservation. They had sent their children to the best schools and would have established a class within the category. Unless a concept like the ‘creamy layer’ was introduced in order to enable other neglected members of the category to compete and share the spoils, only the creamy layer would benefit.

Presently, those whose parents earned less than Rs 8 lakh per year were excluded from the ‘creamy layer’. Khedkar’s father was an officer in the Pollution Control Board. Over the years, he seemed to have earned some Rs 40 crore and acquired assets like land and automobiles which he was forced to declare to the Election Commission because of his entering the electoral arena during the 2019 Assembly elections in Maharashtra. Yet, his daughter claimed to be a non-creamy layer candidate when appearing for the civil services examinations.

She also claimed to be visually impaired. There is a provision of 2 per cent reservation for the physically impaired, a category in which the visually challenged also fall. This claim had to be ratified by a board of doctors of AIIMS, New Delhi. Though she was given dates for the test more than once, she failed to appear before the board.

I don’t know if she tried to pass off as a tribal candidate instead of an OBC by confusing Vanjari with Banjara. The inquiry that has been ordered will pinpoint her falsehoods, if any. And if there are attempts to obfuscate, she should be peremptorily discharged. In fact, she would need to be prosecuted for cheating if any of her claims is proved false.

The entitlements claimed by the probationer are simply outrageous. I have come across many entrants to the IAS and the IPS in recent decades who have joined the services with the express purpose of enriching themselves through irregular and illegal means. But I have not heard of a probationer flaunting a BMW or an Audi, as Khedkar is reported to have done, and deigning to use a red beacon on that car to assert her importance.

These are traits that should have been noticed even earlier at the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration in Mussoorie. How did these traits escape the notice of the academy’s staff and its director? It is incumbent on the director to advise the government to get rid of such misfits at the training stage itself. It needed the probationer to usurp the anteroom of a serving state service officer during his absence to show her true colours. At least now, the government should act swiftly to get rid of a probationer who is not in the service to serve the people but to be waited on. The academy has recalled her. That indicates appropriate action has been decided.

The All-India Service Rules provide the authorities with enough scope to rid the administration of such misfits. I fail to understand why the government is so tolerant. The IAS and IPS officers will perforce interact with the local populace throughout their careers. If their approach is warped from the very beginning, the people are going to suffer. If the political class claims to serve the people, as it continuously proclaims, it should not allow such arrogance and high-handed behaviour on the part of officers.

A well-respected officer (now retired) of the Maharashtra IPS cadre, Meeran Chadha Borwankar, has written in her memoirs about an evil-minded probationer. Meeran was the only woman officer in her batch. The colleague knocked on her door one evening and propositioned her. She reported the matter to the officer in charge, but severe action was not taken. In fact, it was a fit case for discharge from service, which incidentally did happen years later when the probationer, now a full-fledged officer, was serving in his own state, where, too, he had misbehaved.

A provision in the rules which enables the government to pension off recalcitrant officers at the age of 50 and then at 55 if they prove to be corrupt or incompetent is not being used. Recently, newspapers have been saturated with reports about a senior IPS officer in Maharashtra whose reputation was one of the worst that I have known. Some 25 years or so ago, members of the community to which the officer belonged had approached me, as a Mohalla Movement Committee office-bearer, to complain about his corrupt activities. He was harassing the constabulary to collect money for him, they told me.

I kept track of the man and learnt that he was set in his ways. Did the government not know of his tendencies? Why did it not pension him off at 50 or 55? Why did it wait till its hands were forced and the public began baying for his blood?

The proportion of officers in the IAS and the IPS who indulge in corruption from the word go has increased steadily over the years. Some have risen to the very top of the pyramid. When they hang up their boots, they have a lot of money. But no one respects them.