The body will now have to respond to the charges levelled against it related to discrepancies and irregularities in its evaluation system
Thanks to the persistent efforts made by an NGO, the division bench of Supreme Court yesterday issued a notice to the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) against its faulty evaluation system of scaling or moderation used in the Civil Services (main) examination. The Supreme Court division bench comprising Justices G S Singhvi and S J Mukhopadhyay heard the petitioner’s plea, as presented by Senior Supreme Court Council KTS Tulsi, and thereafter issued the notice to the body.
ADVERTISEMENT
Advocate Pankaj Kumar, who assisted Tulsi, said from Delhi, “This is an important move taken by the Supreme Court in the case. We had challenged the scaling or moderation system used by UPSC. It results in a lot of anomalies and irregularities, all of which have been reported in the past. The issue is about the transparency of the examination in this country. The UPSC will have to reply to the notice, at the next hearing.”
MiD DAY had earlier reported how nine ambitious youths from across the country had dreamt of serving their nation in the capacity of civil service officers, only to have them dashed, when none of them, in spite of being extremely meritorious, managed to clear the UPSC exam (‘There something rotten…’ February 10).
Today, however, they are doing well in their respective fields – one of them is a Kargil War hero, while others have graduated to careers like medicine, stock brokerage, etc.
Scarred by their experiences, the nine members, united by their desire to expose the irregularities in the system, have come together to form the NGO Transparency Seekers for Accountability (TSA). In course of their investigations, they unearthed serious discrepancies in the way the exams are conducted.
The NGO has used RTI details and have court verdicts to unearth the irregularities.
Interestingly, UPSC is a constitutional body under the department of personnel and training, one of the many portfolios directly under the Prime Minister’s office.
Psychiatrist Dr Prashant Chakkarwar, a core member from the NGO, said, “Our aim is to bring transparency in the examination process of UPSC and rightful candidates should not be deprived of their chance to make it amongst the final lists. We have come across a lot of irregularities in the way the exams are conducted, and victims get crushed betweenu00a0the ‘influential’ and the ‘corrupt’ and are in the process deprived of the right to serve the nation.”u00a0
Subscribe today by clicking the link and stay updated with the latest news!" Click here!
