Srinagar, Aug 24: Enveloped in self-imposed secrecy paranoia, Jammu and Kashmir Public Service Commission has many things to gloat over, with its selections for various prestigious posts having come under cloud.
In the latest case of faulty selection and shoddy evaluation by PSC, two candidates who had appeared for the Combined Services Examination (CSE) in 2009 improved their ranks by 100 marks each after rechecking their answer scripts.
Sarib, son of a state’s top bureaucrat had opted for Geography as one of the compulsory subjects in the CSE mains and had failed to make it to the final selection list as he had secured only 35 marks in one of the Geography papers as per the initial evaluation by PSC.
Doubtful of evaluation of his Geography paper, Sarib applied to PSC for the rechecking of the same and was surprised to see that 100 marks were left out by the evaluator while summing up the marks of the said paper. The left-out 100 marks after being added to his earlier score of 35 shot up his gross total to 135 marks in Geography paper.
After the addition of these marks to his earlier score, Sarib rose to 35th position in the overall merit list of 398 candidates securing him a berth in the prestigious junior scale of Kashmir Administrative service.
Another candidate, Siddharth Dhiman, who was earlier selected for the Kashmir Police Service (KPS) after rechecking his compulsory paper of law increased his score by 100 marks in his gross total which eventually changed his position from Kashmir Police Service to Junior Scale Kashmir Administrative Service.
Sources in the the Government confirmed to Greater Kashmir that the PSC has communicated two names to General Administration Department for their consideration in Junior Scale Kashmir Administrative Service. They, however, refused to divulge further details.
The PSC had conducted the CSE preliminary examination on May 17, 2009 and around 10000 candidates had qualified for the mains while 1200 candidates were called for interview. The interviews were conducted from December 10 to January 11 and eventually around 398 candidates were selected by the commission who were recommended for various services comprising Junior Scale KAS, Accounts and Police.
Jammu and Kashmir Public Service Commission has been courting lot of criticism over the issue that it does not come within the purview of Right to Information Act to show the answer scripts to the candidates.
Pertinently, in a judgment on August 19, the State Information Commission allowed candidates to go through their answer keys and OMR sheets at PSC, which would so far deny access to the material citing “lack of provision.”
In a ruling in case of two complaints with regard to the post of Public Law Officers, the Chief Information Commissioner, GR Sufi, ruled: “It is hereby ordered that the candidates/appellants will be allowed to go through their answer keys in the presence of authorities duly authorized by the PSC as the finalization of selection is yet to be made, as informed by the Public Information Officer of the PSC, Gulzar Ahmad. It is further ordered that the appellants will not take photo copies of their answer keys but they have to be provided enough and sufficient time to study their answer keys.”
Earlier in a related judgement, the Apex Court had ruled that the examinees have a right to inspect answer-sheets under the transparency law.
The evaluated answer-sheets are covered under the definition of the "information" under the Right to Information Act, a bench comprising Justices R V Raveendran and A K Patnaik said.
It upheld the judgement of the Calcutta High Court which had said "rejection for inspection of answer-sheets cannot be sustained".

Lastupdate on : Wed, 24 Aug 2011 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Wed, 24 Aug 2011 18:30:00 GMT
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