Republic Day 2024: Bureaucrat Who Inspired '12th Fail' Gets Meritorious Service Medal

Indian Police Service officer Manoj Kumar Sharma, whose life inspired the Hindi movie ’12th Fail’, is among 37 Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) personnel who have been awarded various police and fire service medals on the eve of the 75th Republic Day.

A Union Home Ministry statement named Mr Sharma, a 2005-batch Indian Police Service officer of the Maharashtra cadre, his batchmate from the Bihar cadre Jitender Rana and a few others as the recipients of the Medal for Meritorious Service (MSM).

Directed by Vidhu Vinod Chopra, ’12th Fail’ was based on Anurag Pathak’s bestselling novel about the journey of Mr Sharma and his wife Shraddha Joshi, an Indian Revenue Service (IRS) officer.

Both Mr Sharma and Mr Rana are on deputation to the CISF and posted with the force’s Aviation Security Wing. The two officers head the CISF units at the Mumbai and Delhi airports respectively as the chief airport security officer.

The strength of the CISF is about 1.80 lakh. The force guards 68 civil airports in the country, besides installations in the nuclear and aerospace domains. It has recently been inducted for Parliament security in Delhi.

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