A day after media reports regarding the controversies in the selection of 62 additional candidates during the recent Meghalaya Civil Service preliminary examination, the Meghalaya Public Service Commission (MPSC) today denied that there was any nepotism or favouritism in the process.
“The Commission wants to make it clear that transparency and confidentiality at the highest level was maintained,” it said.
The Commission also clarified that most public examinations have a mechanism for a candidate to appeal against any faulty question or answer to address the grievance of a candidate. “The same yardstick and policy is adopted by MPSC,” it said.
“All measures have been taken to ensure that the questions set by the question setter/examiner are error free. However, despite all these precautions and efforts, errors do occur at times. The same is the case with most of the top recruitment authorities of the nation,” the MPSC added.
It also said that after the declaration of the result of MCS preliminary examination, one complainant filed a petition to the Commission on January 25, 2024 seeking answer key for the examination.
“The answer key was accordingly, supplied to the complainant on February 6, 2024. The petitioner submitted a representation to the Commission stating that the official answer key to three questions was wrong. He submitted his petition along with documents on February 9, 2024 to support his claim,” the MPSC said.
“On receiving the representation, an internal review of the claims of the petitioner was immediately looked into. Thereafter, the Commission decided to call for a third party to verify and evaluate the claim of the complainant. Accordingly, an expert was engaged to review only the correctness of three questions which were challenged as wrong answer key. The expert after examining the questions and the answers agreed that the errors have occurred. The Commission took the matter seriously and decided to comply with the reassessment of the OMR sheets only for those three questions,” it added.
According to the MPSC, the three questions carry two marks each, making a total of six marks and if the candidate gets all the three answers correct he/she gets six marks. It also said that the reassessment was made for the three questions only that are challenged and the entire OMR sheet was not reassessed.
The MPSC also said that the number of candidates for different categories for the MCS preliminary examination as declared on December 15, 2023 are – Unreserved (112), Khasi-Jaintia (92), Garo (84) and Other ST/SC (86).
“Those candidates after reassessment of the three questions whose marks are as per the cut-off mark and above are considered eligible and included in the additional list. A total of 62 candidates were found to have qualified and notified in the additional list. The Commission has in order to ensure fairness and do justice to the complaint as the official answer key was wrong, decided to give opportunity to him and others who have not filed a petition. As outlined in the notification, instead of offering relief to only the petitioner, the doctrine of equality was applied to all 13,451 candidates for reassessment of the three questions only, while keeping the remaining questions intact out of which 62 fresh candidates secured the cut-off, in addition to the 580 candidates of the first list, are declared to have qualified for the MCS (Mains) Examination,” the MPSC clarified.
“Hence the charges of nepotism, favouritism and deviation from the normal process of conduct of examinations are baseless,” it added.
KSU raises concern with MPSC Chairman
The Khasi Students’ Union (KSU) today questioned the selection of 62 additional candidates for the Meghalaya Civil Service (MCS) after conducting reassessment of answer sheets of the preliminary examinations held in November last year.
The KSU delegation led by employment monitoring cell chairman Rueben Najiar met Meghalaya Public Service Commission (MPSC) Chairman, Paul Reader Marwein to seek clarification on the matter.
According to Najiar, the reassessment has been done with a malafide intention to accommodate candidates “who are high profile.”
According to Najiar, the MPSC Chairman explained that there were three mistakes in the OMR sheets and the reevaluation was done after a candidate filed a complaint.
During the meeting with the MPSC Chairman, the students’ body has put forth the demand to display the marks of all the candidates who were in the original lists as well as that of the 62 additional candidates.
The KSU leader said that this is not the first time MPSC had made such blunders. He said that even in 2018-19 the same thing happened where some of the candidates went to the High Court then.
“The question now arises to what extent the candidates who are aspiring to be a civil servant will be able to tolerate all this,” Najiar said.
Stating that the State civil services examination is held after a gap of many years, he opined that it should be held annually. According to him, Meghalaya cannot cultivate UPSC aspirants since the State itself does not look into the grievances of the aspiring civil servants.
The KSU during the meeting with Marwein also took up the issue of the post of Statistical Officer in the Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Department.
According to Najiar, in 2019 when the post was first advertised there was only one post and later when a corrigendum was given even then there was only one post belonging to Khasi-Jaintia category, but when the result was published two candidates came out successful, one from Khasi-Jaintia category and another from Garo category.
The KSU questioned from where the extra person was selected.
Najiar stated that according to the MPSC Chairman there was another corrigendum about the number of posts but according to the union it was nowhere to be found.
“It’s neither in the website nor could he show us at that point of time,” the KSU leader said.
Meanwhile, on the issue of 325 contractual nurses, Najiar accused that the parameters that were set most of the candidates who are qualified their names were not shortlisted but those who have worked for two years or so their names are there because they have some sort of political leverage and when the union intervened the walk-in interview was called off.
“These kinds of irregularities happen time and again,” he pointed out.
Najiar also threatened that the KSU would call upon all the students or candidates who have faced these kinds of injustices to hit the streets.
