The Meghalaya Public Service Commission is under the scanner after Assam and Arunachal Pradesh
A students’ body has asked the panel to justify the ‘missing candidates’ who should have been called for the police service interview according to the prescribed number per post
After the scam-scarred job panels in Assam and Arunachal Pradesh, the Meghalaya Public Service Commission (MPSC) is now under the scanner.
On July 30, the Khasi Students’ Union set a 48-hour deadline for the MPSC to set its house in order following the detection of faulty questions, and allegations of nepotism and favouritism in the selection of candidates for the Meghalaya Police Service.
The union issued the ultimatum barely 24 hours after a special court in Guwahati prescribed 14 years of imprisonment for Rakesh Kumar Paul, a former chairperson of the Assam Public Service Commission, in a cash-for-job scam that involved the recruitment of Agriculture Development Officers in 2015. Two others were given 10-year jail terms.
In a letter to the MPSC chairperson, the students’ body said the commission had made a mockery of its rules by calling 642 candidates instead of 525 for the mains examination for the 35 vacancies advertised in July 2023. One of the commission’s rules states that the number of candidates to be called for the mains exam should not be more than 15 times the number of vacancies declared.
The students’ body also questioned the clearance for the extra 117 candidates for the mains when the commission admitted to adjusting marks for three faulty questions in the preliminary examination. “We demand the publication of the marks, an independent investigation into the discrepancies, a clarification on the missing candidates, and the rectification of the errors,” the union said.
The “missing candidates” is a reference to the number of candidates who, according to the ratio prescribed by the MPSC, should have been called for personal interviews for 17 Meghalaya Police Service posts.
The students’ union cited a clause in the MPSC rulebook saying that the variation for the selection of candidates for interviews per post should be in the range of 1:2.5 to 1:10.
“If we consider the ratio of 1:2.5, at least 42 candidates should have been called for the interview for the 17 posts. But the commission deviated from its normal process of recruitment by calling 25 candidates,” the union said.
The union also sought clarification from the MPSC for selecting two candidates for a solitary post of statistical officer in the Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Department. “The commission must stop justifying its incompetence,” the union said, adding that the exams and the selection process made it apparent that the panel had been resorting to nepotism and favouritism.
Allegations of cash-driven recruitment have also dogged the Arunachal Pradesh Public Service Commission. Members of the panel have been accused of taking ₹50 lakh or more per job by doctoring the selection process and selectively leaking question papers of examinations to recruit people in various posts under the Arunachal Pradesh government.
The irregularities came to light after one of the candidates filed a complaint at the Itanagar police station on August 29, 2022, saying he suspected that the question paper for the examination he sat for had been leaked. A total of 46 government officials and 13 private individuals were subsequently arrested in connection with the malpractices conducted in the recruitment examinations since 2014.
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