Credibility at Stake
- Hueiyen Lanpao Editorial :: October 05, 2012 -

Manipur Public Service Commission MPSC Building

We may need no reiteration over State Public Service Commissions coming under severe criticism for gross irregularities in holding competitive examinations and corruption in selection of candidates.

But the case of Manipur Public Service Commission (MPSC) is simply baffling.

After a long wait and several rounds of controversies, the results of the Manipur Civil Services Combined (Main) Examination, 1010 were finally declared on September 22 (though the results were made public only on September 24).

Right from the day the advertisement for recruitment was published by MPSC on November 2, 2010 to the preliminary examination conducted on September 11, 2011 for short-listing of candidates for the main examination, and then from the main examination which went on from February 6 to 22, 2012 to the personality test conducted from August 21 to September 18, 2012, there was not a single phase where the process of conducting the competitive examination, which is supposed to recruit the best of the best, had not been dogged by controversies.

These controversies range from the charges of not allotting adequate quotas for the reserved categories to direct lifting of questions from a particular website, and from the wrong answer keys given to the questions asked in the examination to providing the same question paper of an earlier examination to the candidates.

After braving all these controversies and resultant court cases, the results of the examination were declared to announce the names of 138 candidates who have been recommended for recruitment to various posts. But the shadow of controversies still hovers over the highest recruitment body in the state.

In the latest controversy, a candidate, who got higher mark but not found no place in the list of recommended candidate has knocked at the door of Gauhati High Court seeking for justice.

Accordingly, the court has given an interim order for withholding the appointment order of the other candidate who has been allegedly chosen in place of the complainant.

The next hearing of the case is due on October 10. Now the question is, why every recruitment examination conducted by MPSC is always marred with controversies?

In the past, there have been cases where MPCC could not simply conduct the examination or cancel it altogether after inviting applications from eligible candidates.

Such recurring controversies have raised serious question on the credibility of MPSC as the highest recruitment body in the state.

Despite being a Constitutional body set up in pursuance of Article 315 of the Constitution of India for recommending candidates for recruitment to various important posts of the Government, MPSC has not been able to live up to the expectation of the people down the years.

In fact, there may be none today who could remember when was the last time MPSC had conducted a recruitment which was free from controversies.

Under this circumstance, any new announcement for recruitment through MPSC is being looked upon with cynicism and the first reaction of the people is 'How much they would be asking this time?'

So, the present case of omitting a deserving candidate in the final selection list in favour of another candidate has come as no surprise to anybody.

By the way, an interesting post in the popular social networking site, Facebook read, "In Manipur we do not get job, we buy them."

The truth of the matter knocked us down but not sure of the officials on the hot seats of MPSC.