50 mains answer copies exchanged, 3 officials suspended: UP Public Service Commission to Allahabad High Court

The Uttar Pradesh Public Service Commission (UPPSC) on Monday told the Allahabad High Court that it has found five officials guilty and suspended three of them in the course of its investigation into unfair means adopted during the UP Judicial Service Civil Judge (Junior Division) Examination, 2022 [Shravan Pandey v. State of Uttar Pradesh and Others]..According to the affidavit filed by the UPPSC, approximately 50 answer sheets of candidates who appeared for the mains exam in August 2023 were exchanged.A Bench of Justices Saumitra Dayal Singh and Anish Kumar Gupta noted that the matter cannot be dealt in a light-hearted manner and urged the UPPSC to make the necessary corrections expeditiously."While there may exist less room to doubt the correction being proposed by the UPPSC with respect to the discrepancy noticed by affecting 50 candidates (as noted above first), we do not appreciate the stand of UPPSC with respect to the timeline being indicated. We are mindful that the result was declared in August, 2023. Selected candidates have joined and are undergoing training at various stages," the Court observed. .Therefore, the Court directed the State Commission Chairman to file another affidavit as the previous one filed by the Deputy Secretary did not have the entire information.The Court also directed that the fresh affidavit detail the status of the ongoing inquiry, the number of answer sheets found, and how the results will be managed..The Court noted that the correction of the error would involve the exclusion of certain selected candidates and the inclusion of other candidates."Consequentially, those who have been wrongly excluded may be required to be interviewed and a fresh merit list would be required to be prepared. It may also be noted that the present petitioner was not called for interview having scored four marks less than the cut-off marks for interview, the Court said..In view of the above, the Court directed Chairman UPPSC to file an affidavit within five days clearly indicating therein: (i) The change of marks that have to be corrected in view of the error noted in the inquiry report dated 22.06.2024; (ii) Consequently, the affidavit would also disclose the full details of ineligible candidates to be called for interview, once the correction is made, together with the marks originally awarded and the corrected marks; (iii) The affidavit would also disclose full details of the candidates together with the marks originally awarded and the corrected marks who ought to have been called for interview.(iv) The affidavit would also disclose the exact details if any other mistake was noted with respect to any /all answer books (paper wise of all six papers of UP PCS - J Examination 2022) in which Master Fake Code may have been interchanged or any other error of like nature occurred with respect thereto..The matter will be next heard on July 8.Advocates Vibhu Rai and Dhananjai Rai appeared for the petitioner.Advocate Nisheeth Yadav represented the UPPCS..The 2022 exam was announced in December. The preliminary exams were conducted in February 2023, followed by the mains examination in May. Subsequently, interviews were held, and the final results were declared in August 2023. Further, the marks scored by the candidates were made public in November 2023.Dissatisfied with the marks awarded to him, petitioner Shravan Pandey filed a request under the Right to Information Act (RTI Act) in January 2024 seeking details of the distribution of marks in the six papers.After he came to know that he had received only 47 out of 200 in the English paper, he prayed that his answer sheets be also shown to him.When he went through the answer sheets, he found that they did not have his handwriting. He also discovered that the answers on the Hindi paper's answer script were "scored off" in the final 3-4 pages. This prompted Pandey to approach the High Court..On a previous hearing, the High Court had directed the State Commission to furnish the candidate Pandey's answer sheets for all six papers so that his handwriting could be compared.The Commission later informed the High Court that it was looking into a candidate's allegation that his answer sheets had been tampered with..[Read Order]