Shillong, July 30: The Meghalaya Public Service Commission is in a pickle over its attempt to justify the controversial allotment of extra marks and additional candidates to the MCS Preliminary Exams results after the influential Khasi Students’ Union, on Tuesday, gave a 48 hour ultimatum to the commission demanding the publication of marks of all candidates of the prelims.
The student union issued the ultimatum after expressing dissatisfaction with the MPSC public clarification that was issued by it on July 26.
In a letter to the MPSC chairman, the employment cell chairman of the KSU Reuben Najiar said, “The Union demands that marks of the MCS (Prelims) Examinations should be published and an independent inquiry may be made.”
The union stated in its letter that in regards to the Meghalaya Civil Services, it was clarified that a petition was filed on the 25th of January, 2024 for submission of answer key and the same was furnished on the 6th of February, 2024.
It questioned whether the MPSC has a criterion that allows candidates to challenge the answer key. “If yes, then, why was the answer key not made public for candidates to challenge prior to the release of the prelims results. And if not, then why did MPSC accept such a petition in the first place?”
On the MPSC’s claim that allotment of marks was challenged by a candidate after obtaining the answer key,the student union has demanded answers.
“If the original answers are faulty, and after being reviewed there are changes which led to the selection of the 62 candidates then it would also mean that the candidates who have been selected previously would have secured a wrong answer(s) which should mean that they may not be able to qualify the said written examination, but there is no list of any candidates being deduce from the main examination. Also, there are bound to be changes in the cut-off marks but none is the case,” points out the KSU in its letter to the MPSC Chairman.
The student body has also accused the commission of shooting its own foot by violating its own norms on the ratio of candidates and posts.
Referring to the advertisement dated 18th July, 2023, the KSU said, “It was mentioned in PARA 8 that “candidates who will be called to appear for the Main Examination shall not be more than 15 (fifteen) times the number of vacancies declared. Thus, with the total of 35 vacancies advertised, the total number of candidates to appear in the mains examinations should be 525, but now the number has risen up to 642 candidates making a mockery of the Commission’s own self-imposed rule.”
The union stated that, “The Commission must stop justifying its act of incompetency at the highest level and deny any facts of it not deviating from the normal process, because it is utmost clear that the process of conducting the examination has deviated and the Commission failed to handled it responsibly and with that the allegations of nepotism and favouritism goes hand in hand.”
There is more trouble for the MPSC as the KSU is now also seeking clarification in regards to the previous conduct of exams for the Meghalaya Police Services (MPS).
“Clarification has to be made in regards to the missing candidates as per the ratio for personal interview of MPS and if found faulty, the Commission should immediately rectify the errors and call upon more qualified candidates that should have been called for the personal interview of MPS as based in the advertisement; and Justification to be given for selecting 2 candidates for the post of statistical officer which was basically for 1 (one) candidate under A.H & Veterinary Department and immediate cancellation of the result of the other candidate, if found faulty,” states the union while warning that it will be compelled to take “prompt action”.
