The Haryana Public Service Commission (HPSC) on June 24, announced that it has postponed the Haryana Civil Services (mains) examination till July. The news came after the candidates staged a protest outside the HPSC office over the irregularities in the conduct of the examination.
The State Civil Services Examination was conducted in Haryana after five years on March 31, 2019. The last exam was held in 2014.
Candidates Stage Protest
A large number of youngsters, who appeared for the Haryana Civil Services (Executive Branch) preliminary exam, protested outside the Haryana Public Service Commission office, raising their concern over the faulty examination papers.
Shweta Dhull, one of the candidates who is also leading the protest spoke to The Logical Indian and said, “Our protest is an attempt to uncover the truth and get justice”.
“The question paper was full of mistakes. In a paper with negative marking, ten questions were declared null and void after the examination, and eight questions had two correct answers as options to choose from. In total, 26 questions were wrong in Paper 1. The entire motto of maintaining competitiveness is now defeated,” she added.
She cited the example of a question on the coastline of India, which had two correct answers as options. According to many protestors, this could be an attempt to benefit a few students.
Students also alleged that 15 questions in the second paper were out of syllabus. Forty-eight questions on mathematics were such that could be solved with multiple level formulas. They also alleged that the questions were not translated into Hindi, thereby, discriminating against the Hindi speaking candidates.
The protesters criticised the authorities of extremely high cutoffs and also blamed the HPSC of not giving carbon-copies of the OMR sheets. They also claimed that there was a lack of security measures. There were no biometric scanning, no use of permanent ink for thumb impression and no CCTV cameras.
“The Civil Services Aptitude Test had no questions related to aptitude. We were given questions on Mathematics and comprehensions. Why were we not asked questions related to interpersonal communication skills, decision making, logical reasoning?” Shweta told The Logical Indian.
The protestors have accused the examiner of being incapable and inefficient and blamed the authorities for defending the examiner in the court.
As informed by the candidates, they filed an RTI but received no answers, only replies. The RTI replied saying that it is a constitutional body and cannot be answerable to this until the recruitment is completed. “Our case is being fought by a private advocate, bearing lakhs of rupees per hearing. Why cannot they create a paper with valid questions and not harass us? Our results are announced when the courts are shut for vacations. We tried to approach the court during vacations, but only got dates,” Shweta added.
HPSC Mains Postponed
After the candidates protested over the faulty preliminary examination, the HPSC has now announced on its website that the mains examination is postponed and will be conducted in early July.
It has put out a notification stating, “The commission has reconsidered the matter and decided to postpone the mains examination due to administrative reasons.”
HPSC chairman Manbir Singh Bhadana put out a statement saying, “The mains exam has been postponed on administrative grounds. The commission needs more time to make preparations for this massive exercise.”
The Logical Indian community stands in support of the HPSC aspirants. We hope to see some positive results for their efforts, and we urge the higher authorities to make sure that justice is served to the candidates.
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