The 2023-batch on-probation IAS officer is facing serious charges of impropriety and “abuse of power”.
Trainee IAS officer Puja Khedkar, caught in the middle of a massive controversy over claims she made in her UPSC candidature, has properties worth crores, NDTV has found.
According to Ms Khedkar’s “statement of immovable property for the year 2023”, updated as of January 1, 2024, and exclusively accessed by NDTV, the junior officer owns five plots of land and two apartments across Maharashtra. The value of these assets totals a whopping ₹ 22 crore.
The disclosure lists her as the owner of two plots of land in Pune district’s Mahalunge worth nearly ₹ 16 crore, one in Pune district’s Dhadawali worth ₹ 4 crore, and two in Ahmednagar’s Pachunde and Nandur worth ₹ 25 lakh and ₹ 1 crore respectively. The plots in Pachunde and Nandur were a gift from her mother. In all, she owns over 22 acres of land.
She also has two apartments in Ahmednagar and Pune. The 984-square-foot flat in Ahmednagar’s Savedi is worth ₹ 45 lakh and the 724-square-foot apartment in Pune’s Kondhwa is worth ₹ 75 lakh.
All the assets were acquired between 2014 and 2019 and Ms Khedkar earns ₹ 42 lakh annually from them. Moreover, according to Vijay Kumbhar, an RTI activist from Pune, her father has assets worth ₹ 40 crore.
Ms Khedkar posed as an OBC non-creamy layer candidate in her UPSC candidature. In Maharashtra, to qualify as an OBC non-creamy layer candidate, the annual income of the applicant’s parents or the yearly income of the family should not be more than ₹ 8 lakh.
Ms Khedkar, who had an all-India rank of 841, also claimed visual and mental disability. However, she did not undergo the mandatory medical tests to corroborate her disability claims.