UPSC contemplates criminal action against two candidates for claiming selection in civil services

New Delhi: The Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) is considering criminal and disciplinary penal action against two candidates for allegedly claiming selection in the civil services examination, the results of which were declared on Tuesday,

In an official statement, it is said that the case relates to Aysha Makrani (from Madhya Pradesh) and Tushar (from Bihar) who fraudulently claimed that they have been finally recommended by the Commission in the civil services examination 2022 against two roll numbers of genuinely recommended candidates.

"The claims of both persons are fake. They have forged the documents in their favour to buttress their claims. By doing so, both Makrani and Tushar have acted in contravention of the provisions of the Rules of the Civil Services Examination, 2022 notified by the government of India (Department of Personnel and Training), said the statement issued.

Therefore, in accordance with the provisions of the Examination Rules, the UPSC is contemplating both criminal as well as disciplinary penal action against the two candidates for their fraudulent acts, the statement said. "The system of the UPSC is robust as well as foolproof and such errors are not possible," it added.

The UPSC conducts civil services examination annually in three stages -- preliminary, main and interview -- to select officers of Indian Administrative Service (IAS), Indian Foreign Service (IFS) and Indian Police Service (IPS), among others Sharing details, the Commission said Aysha Makrani, daughter of Salimmuddin Makrani, who is claiming her final recommendation by the UPSC, is found to have forged the documents in her favour.

Her actual roll number is 7805064. She appeared in the preliminary examination held on June 5, 2022 and scored only 22.22 marks in General Studies Paper-I and 21.09 marks in General Studies Paper-II, it said.

"As per the requirement of Examination Rules, she was required to score at least 66 marks in Paper-II. She has not only failed to qualify in Paper-II but scored far less marks than the cut-off marks of Paper-I, which were 88.22 for unreserved category for the preliminary examination of the year 2022," the UPSC said.

Hence, Aysha Makrani has failed at the stage of the preliminary examination itself and could not move further in next stages of the examination, it added.

On the other hand, Ayasha Fatima, daughter of Naziruddin, bearing roll number 7811744, is the genuine candidate who has been recommended by the UPSC, securing 184th rank in the final result of the civil services examination, 2022, the statement said.

Similarly, in case of Tushar, son of Brijmohan from Rewari in Haryana, he had applied for the civil services (preliminary) examination, 2022 and was allotted roll number 2208860 for this examination, it said.

He appeared in the preliminary examination and scored minus 22.89 (i.e. -22.89) marks in General Studies Paper-I and 44.73 marks in General Studies Paper-II, the UPSC said.

As per the requirement of Examination Rules, he was required to score at least 66 marks in Paper-II, it said. Thus, even Tushar has failed at the stage of the preliminary examination itself and could not move further in next stages of the examination, the Commission added.

"On the other hand, it is confirmed that Tushar Kumar, son of Ashwini Kumar Singh, bearing roll number 1521306, of state of Bihar is the genuine candidate, who has been recommended by the UPSC at 44th rank," the statement said.

The Commission said both these cases have been reported in the electronic/print media widely.

"One of such media channels has irresponsibly reported that the UPSC has corrected its mistake in one of the above two cases and investigating the matter as to how such error has happened," it said. Many other media channels and social media portals have also carried the news without any verification, the statement said, adding that it was unprofessional on the part of the said media channel.

"It is reiterated that the UPSC's system is robust and foolproof to eliminate any such errors of alleged nature. It is expected of the media channels that they verify the genuineness of such claims from the UPSC before broadcasting/publishing news of such fake claims through their print/media channels," it said.

Inputs from PTI