MPSC recruitment fiasco lands in court
Source: Hueiyen News Service

Imphal, December 09 2011: Admitting a writ petition alleging malpractices and irregularities in the Manipur Civil Services Combined Competitive (Preliminary) Examination, 2010 conducted by Manipur Public Service Commission (MPSC) on September 11 this year, the Imphal Bench of the Gauhati High Court has listed the case for hearing again on December 19 .

Justice Tayenjam Nandakumar gave the ruling yesterday after admitting the writ petition (civil) filed against Secretary (Department of Personnel), Government of Manipur jointly by 11 candidates, who appeared in the MPSC-conducted examination.

The court ruling noted that counsel of the petitioners, Advocate BP Sahu, has made serious allegations against the MPSC that there are many malpractices and irregularities in conducting the Manipur Civil Services Combined Competitive Examination, 2010 held on September 11, 2011 .

One of the allegations is that the candidates had been asked to write their names on the answer script which consisted of only one page.

Moreover, in the Admit Cards issued to the examinees, instructions like 'All corrections and changes in writing the roll number must be initialed by you as well as by the invigilator and the countersigned by the supervisor', etc, have been given.

Therefore, it is the submission of the counsel for the petitioners that MPSC has intentionally asked the examinees to write their signatures on the answer scripts for indulging in malpractices.

This fact, however, cannot be decided unless and until an opportunity is given to the MPSC to have their say.

Furthermore, noting that the counsel for the petitioners has produced a copy of the answer script of one of the candidates, which was said to have been obtained through RTI, the court ruling observed that the petitioners have to file an additional affidavit annexing the copy of the said answer script which had been obtained through RTI.

Consequently, listing the case for hearing again on December 19, 2011, the court has also directed the Registry to furnish a copy of the court ruling to the Secretary of MPSC by sending a special messenger.

In the writ petition, the counsel for the petitioners observed that along with issuing an advertisement on November 25, 2010, MPSC initiated steps for recruitment of 138 posts under six different categories, namely, Manipur Civil Service Grade-II, Manipur Police Service Grade-II, Manipur Finance Service Grade-III, Sub-Deputy Collector, Manipur Secretariat Service Grade-V and Election Officer and the Manipur Civil Services Combined Competitive (Preliminary) Examination, 2010 on September 11, 2011.However, soon after the examination was conducted, it was found that the question sets (Booklet A, B, C and D) of the Preliminary examination were full of latent defects and abnormalities.

A total of 24 questions (from question no.146 to 169 of Booklet B) were found to have been copied and pasted straight in bulk without any modification and correction of even the wrong question from the website, http:P/cbseadda.blogspot.com/2011/05/cbse-science-quize.html.Out of these 24 straight questions, one question, namely Question no.167 was found to be erroneous/wrong.

In the question, the words 'safety metals' was used instead 'safety matches' and the irony of the story is that the question-setter did not even change the words 'safety metals' by the correct words 'safety matches', and as such MPSC, while setting questions for preliminary examination never applied their minds, rather they have simply copied and pasted the questions.

Over and above this, MPSC has copied and pasted 11 questions from a magazine, namely, 'News and Events (August, 2011 issue) and the same is reflected in page no.53-54 of the said magazine.

While doing so, MPSC also copied and pasted the questions with errors without any correction as it existed in the magazine.

Thus, from these two instances, the question of leakage of question could be established beyond any doubt, the petitioners contended.

The writ petition further submitted that on close examination of the question sets, it was found that page nos.25-26 of Booklet-A, page nos.5 to 6 of Booklet-B, page nos.11-12 of Booklet-C and page nos.19-20 of Booklet-D were cut and replaced by another sheet by pasting manually.

As such, no absolute secrecy had been maintained by the question-setter as the entire exercise of cutting and pasting the respective sheets on nearly 13,000 (number of applicants) question sets/booklets would involve huge manpower.

Comment