Manoj Soni has resigned citing personal reasons five years before the expiry of his tenure in May 2029. (Image: PTI)
The resignation of Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) chairman Manoj Soni on “personal grounds” in the backdrop of the allegation that a candidate had faked her documents, including her name and Aadhaar card, to get into the Indian Administrative Service cannot signal an end to the raising of thorny questions on the functioning of the constitutional institution but is just the beginning. Although, that Mr Soni resigned in June this year but the news came out only now is no reason why the two events should not be linked.
It is a fact that UPSC has lodged a complaint with the police regarding the fudging of documents by an officer of the 2022 batch of the Maharashtra cadre to avail more chances to write the civil service examination than that for which she was eligible. It is quite disturbing that the Commission looked into the verification process in a serious manner only after the IAS probationer in question started making news for all the wrong reasons, like fixing her name board on her private car and demanding undeserved facilities in office. The system would have never raised a doubt about her eligibility to be there in the first place had she acted in an unassuming fashion.
The UPSC selects people who will play a leadership role in the country’s bureaucracy through the civil service examination. Around 1,000 are handpicked for the purpose every year. Although several competitive examinations in the country have come into disrepute after their integrity was compromised, the civil service examination, thanks mainly to the professional and transparent way in which it has been conducted over the decades, has been able to keep its shine intact. The latest episode, however, has changed all that.
The UPSC must now launch a process of verification of the documents of all successful candidates, starting with the immediately previous years. Should the exercise reveal even a single instance of fraud, it should initiate action. It must do whatever it takes to assure the people that only the eligible get to serve them.
