From Our Correspondent
TURA: A section of the candidates who appeared for the Meghalaya Public Service Commission (MPSC) interview for the posts of lecturers in the Garo Department have alleged manipulation in the declaration of results stating that the interview was conducted in a biased manner.
Demanding the immediate cancellation of the results declared and the issuance of a fresh notification for the conduct of an interview, the candidates have served a 15-day ultimatum to the concerned authority to initiate action while warning that it would be forced to approach court for justice in the interest of all the deserving candidates if their demands were not met.
In a letter to the Chairman of the MPSC, the candidates alleged that the MPSC had violated stipulated norms by selecting candidates who had not cleared the National Eligibility Test (NET). In an advertisement issued by the MPSC prior to the interview, it was stated that the candidates ‘should have cleared the NET conducted by the UGC/CSIR or similar tests accredited by the UGC’ to be considered for the said post. The candidates further said that there were many among the unsuccessful candidates who had cleared NET.
In the letter, the affected candidates also claimed that by means of an RTI it has been learnt that a particular successful female candidate had failed to produce her MA certificate on the day of the interview on May 2. The same, according to the students, was also confirmed by the PIO of NEHU, Shillong who informed through a letter that the said candidate’s original MA certificate was verified, checked and compared by the official of the Examination Department only the day after, i.e. on May 3, and was personally collected by the candidate on the same day.
The letter added that in the guidelines given prior to the interview, the MPSC had made it mandatory for the candidates to produce all original certificates at the time of the interview to qualify for the post in question and some candidates were also rejected for failing to produce their documents on time. The candidates argued that this amounts to violation of the rules and regulations set the MPSC.
Further, the candidates claim that there was manipulation in the allotment of marks stating that there was a wide gap in the marks obtained by the 10 successful candidates and the 55 unsuccessful ones. They maintained that it was unlikely that the former could have all obtained marks above 50 while the latter lingered below 30.
“None of the successful candidates had any working experience while most of the unsuccessful candidates had better working experience as lecturers. The result declared by the MPSC was highly irregular and liable to be struck down by the court of law,” the unsuccessful candidates stated.
The affected candidates also questioned the manner in which the candidates were called for the interview where no direction was made to submit academic and other connected documents including the working experience certificates, depriving fellow candidates from knowing the actual qualification of other candidates.
“This was a clear violation of the Right to information and gave a free hand to the MPSC members to manipulate and twist the results,” the candidates alleged.