Nishikant Khajuria
JAMMU, Mar 9: In a sudden development following an interim order of the High Court allowing six petitioners to appear in the Mains, Jammu and Kashmir Public Service Commission today deferred J&K Combined Competitive (Mains) Examinations 2021, which were scheduled to be held from tomorrow.
“It is notified for information of the candidates that Jammu and Kashmir Combined Competitive (Mains) Examinations 2021 scheduled to be held from 10-03-2022 to 17-03-2022 is deferred till further notice,” read the notification, issued late tonight by the JKPSC.
Earlier in the day, a Bench of Justice Dhiraj Singh Thakur modified its previous order and allowed only six petitioners, who have qualified GS-II, to appear in the Mains.
“In merit wise, around 2500 aspirants are above these six petitioners and implementation of the interim order would have made a strong case of allowing all these thus increasing the total number of candidates from 4500 to 7000. Hence, the JKPSC had no option other than to defer the Mains till final verdict of the court,” official sources told the Excelsior.
A similar situation had arisen in 2016 which ultimately led to cancellation of the exams, sources added
Pertinent to mention that 24 ‘aggrieved’ candidates had approached the J&K High Court last month seeking a stay on the Notification (No PSC/Exam/2021160) dated November 13, 2021, vide which the result of Competitive (Preliminary) Jammu and Kashmir Combined Examination 2021 was declared and notification (No PSC/Exam/2021161) dated November 26, 2021, vide which applications through online mode had been invited from the candidates who had been declared to have qualified for admission to the J&K Combined Competitive (Main) Examination 2021.
On plea of these ‘aggrieved’ candidates seeking proportionate marks for alleged “wrong” questions in the J&K Combined Competitive (Preliminary) Examination held on October 24 last year, the High Court on February 21 issued a notice to J&K PSC and posted the matter for further consideration on March 28.
Seeking a response to the petition filed by these 24 aggrieved candidates, a bench of Justice Dhiraj Singh Thakur said: “Subject to the objections from the other side, the petitioners should be permitted to sit in the Mains examination which is to be held in March 2022. However, the results should not be declared till further orders.”
In their plea before the court, the aggrieved aspirants said that nine questions in the paper (GS-I) and one question in the paper (GS-II) were not correct which ought to have been deleted and proportionate marks allocated to them in terms of Public Service Commission Rules 12 A (c).
“In the present case, it is suggested that only four questions from paper (GS-I) were deleted in terms of Rule 12 A (c) and not the entire nine questions and instead respondents (PSC) corrected only five questions which they could not do in terms of the relevant rules,” the court said, adding, “similarly in other paper GS-II, one question ought to have been deleted but was corrected.”
The court observed that petitioners claimed that had they been given the benefit of those five questions which were corrected, they would have made it beyond the cut-off marks.
As PSC filed objections on March 2, urging the court to vacate the interim order stating that 18 of the petitioners had failed to qualify even GS-II, further hearing was fixed on March 7 but the case couldn’t be taken up and posted for today when the interim order was modified and only 6 petitioners, who have qualified the GS-II were allowed to sit in the Mains. Other petitioners were granted no relief.
Directing JKPSC to provide special IDs to these six petitioners, Justice Thakur said: Permit those who have qualified GS-II otherwise, I will take action against you. Open your office at midnight and complete formalities.”
Following the interim order, sources said that JKPSC Chairman B R Sharma convened an emergency meeting with top officers of the Commission and decided to defer the Mains examinations till final verdict of the court.
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