Can APPSC conduct Mains before polls?

The Mains should now be conducted to more than 8,000 aspirants who had appeared last time in addition to the 209 candidates, who missed the chance due to flaws in the Key.

The question now is whether the Commission can conduct the exams in the present uncertain atmosphere. Refusing to react on the judgment immediately, Chittaranjan Biswal, the Chairman of APPSC said- “I have come to know about the judgment in the media. I have not yet received the judgment copy. Once our people return from Delhi, we will discuss and take view. Naturally, we have to follow the ruling of the Court. We will do it.”

He declined to react whether the exams can be conducted before next elections. “We cannot speculate. The arrangements, dates of other exams have to be taken into consideration. We will take a decision after studying the ruling first,” he told The Hans India.

According to sources in APPSC, the exams may not be possible before the next elections. “The time is very short. We cannot do it at a short notice. First the matter has to be taken to the notice of General Administration Department and the Chief Minister. After getting clearance from them, we have to make arrangements. We should also do the exercise of culling out those 209 aspirants and a fresh

list shall be prepared. As the exam season is nearing, we should also ensure that there will not be any clash of dates as we have to take into account the availability of exam centres as well. If by any chance, Model Code of Conduct comes into force by the time, we conduct the exam, we cannot move forward. So, in all probability, we cannot do it before June this year” an official explained.

Row over Group I exams been raging fire for over an year now. The original notification was released in November 2011 for filling up of 320 posts and the preliminary exam was conducted on May 27, 2012.

Nearly 72.51 per cent of candidates out of a total of 3,03,712 have appeared for the exam, which was held at 740 centres across the State. And out of them a total of 16,246 students qualified for the Mains. Out of these 16,246 aspirants, more than 7,500 have not taken the Mains exams.

But a controversy has erupted after the publication of Key of prelims.

Several students have complained that as many as six questions were given wrong answers and demanded that either marks should be added for those questions or the entire prelims should be cancelled. But the Commission did not pay heed to the demand and went ahead. Added to this, the commission has stirred up another controversy by reducing the cut off marks for the Mains- resulting in making nearly 845 aspirants ineligible for the exam. Dharnas, rasta rokos, hunger strike,

representations to ministers followed but of no avail. Unfazed, the Commission had conducted the Mains from September 18 to 28 in 2012 and even interviews from January 28 to March 22 in 2013.

The final list was ready but had to be stopped due to Court’s direction.