Manorama Khedkar — the mother of former probationary IAS officer Puja Khedkar — has been granted bail in a criminal intimidation case. The Pune rural police had arrested Khedkar earlier this year after a video of her threatening people with a gun went viral.
Additional sessions judge AN Mare granted bail, Manorama Khedkar’s counsel advocate Sudhir Shah said.
Manorama Khedkar was initially arrested on July 18 in connection with a land dispute case and was sent to police custody for four days. Later, the court denied her bail and sent her to judicial custody for 14 days.
The case was filed against her after an old video emerged showing her and her husband Dilip Khedkar allegedly threatening farmers over a land dispute in Mulshi tehsil of Pune.
In the video, she could be seen wielding a pistol, and was also accompanied by bouncers and was seen arguing with a person about ownership of a plot of land.
Meanwhile, the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) on July 31 cancelled the candidature of Puja Khedkar, a 2023-batch IAS officer of the Maharashtra cadre, and also debarred her from appearing in future exams for “misrepresenting information” in her application for the Civil Services Examination, conducted every year to recruit civil servants for the Government of India.