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Relief to J&K candidates

Shujaat Bukhari

SRINAGAR: A recent judgment by the Jammu and Kashmir High Court has brought much relief to 1,716 candidates who had passed the Combined Services Main Examination of the J&K Public Service Commission but had lost hope of appearing at an interview after a writ petition was filed in the Court by some aggrieved candidates.

The Court in its judgment on November 10 said that there had been no violation of rules.

"The methodology evolved cannot be faulted," the single-judge Bench of Justice Y. P. Nargotra said in its 60-page judgment. The petitioners had pleaded that many questions in the multiple choice type paper of the preliminary examination had wrong answers and multiple interpretations.

The examination, meant to make selections for the Kashmir Administrative Service (KAS), had kicked off a controversy and cast a shadow over the PSC but in the light of the judgment it seems the Commission has been exonerated of any malice.

"The Commission being not a private person but a Constitutional body, all its actions, howsoever illegal may be, are to be presumed to be free from malice. There is nothing available on record on which any malice towards the petitioners can be inferred," the Court held.

Describing it as a "landmark" judgment, the students say that it has vindicated their stand. "By stating that the paper was objective and not subjective, it has also dismissed the contention of the petitioners who had said that the questions were subjective in nature and open to various interpretations," said a candidate.

The Court has held that the "candidates were required to choose the best answer option out of the given options. In some of the subjects, the petitioners have objected to the questions which have been repeated.

As the key answers are the same, therefore, a question which has been repeated cannot be said to be a wrong question".

However, it has also taken into consideration the serious dissent made by two members of the Commission, B. K. Tiku and Nissar Ahmad Jan, who had raised many questions on the process. Mr. Tiku had made a direct attack on Commission Chairman Mohammad Shafi Pandit.

The controversy over the examination began soon after the PSC conducted the preliminary examination of the CCS on July 3, 2005, for 132 posts referred to it by the Government, in which 15,239 candidates appeared.

The candidates who failed to appear in the list of the candidates found eligible by the PSC to appear in the Combined Services Main Examination went to the Court claiming that the question papers had discrepancies.

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Relief to J&K candidates

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