J&K PSC withdraws KAS Mains exam notification;Chairman says Mains are now likely from last week of August

By admin On Jun 14, 2017

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz
SRINAGAR: In a significant development, witnessed for the first time in the last 60 years, the Jammu and Kashmir State Public Service Commission (PSC) on Tuesday started the process of rectifying the errors of its questions and answer keys in the KAS Preliminary exam after the notification for KAS Mains was withdrawn.
In an exclusive report on Monday, STATE TIMES had reported that the aggrieved candidates had identified as many as 16 wrong questions and answers in the Political Science paper alone.
Chairman PSC Lateef-uz-Zamaan Deva confirmed to this correspondent that in follow up to yesterday’s full commission meeting decisions, Notification No: PSC/Exam/2017/26 dated 9th May 2017 had been withdrawn. According to this notification, as also Notification No: PSC/Exam/2017/22 dated 23rd April 2017, the KAS Mains examination was scheduled to start from 17th July, 2017.
The candidates, declared qualified in the Preliminary exam result on 23rd April, were currently filing their admission forms for the Main exam for which 30th June had been fixed as the late date.

“We have started the process of verification of 24 identified wrong questions and answers by a team of fresh experts”, Deva asserted. Asked about apprehensions of a section of the candidates that the Main exam could be now delayed by several months, Chairman said he was hopeful that the KAS Mains exam would begin sometime in the last week of August. He said it would take PSC around 10 days to verify the aggrieved candidates’ claim about 24 questions and their answers in the official answer key.
As per PSC’s full commission decision, a team of fresh experts was being constituted for the purpose of verifying the aggrieved candidates’ claim. If the questions or their answers in the official answer key proved to be wrong, entire Preliminary would be re-evaluated and the results compiled and declared afresh. This would be happening for the first time since the PSC was formed in 1957. In all 36,681 candidates (around 21,000 from Jammu and around 16,000 from Kashmir division) had appeared in the KAS Preliminary exam on 19th March, 2017. On 23rd April, 6,925 candidates had been declared qualified for the Mains examination. The cut-off was fixed at 270 marks. However, within days, at least 145 “failed” candidates came forward with representations and applications under RTI Act, claiming that they had scored 280 to 325 marks.
Even as the PSC Secretary and Controller of Examination turned down all the aggrieved candidates’ submissions and claims, a group of RTI applicants threatened to commit suicide if the Public Information Officers and appellate authorities continued to deny them access to their own OMR answer sheets and the PSC’s official answer key.
Thereafter, some of the candidates were allowed to have an inspection of both but none of them was permitted to carry cellphones.
After the inspection, the candidates claimed that a large number of questions and answers in the official key were “wrong”.
However, the PSC authorities did not accede to the aggrieved demand of fresh compilation and declaration of the result and making the official answer key public. It was only after STATE TIMES pursued this issue that PSC relented and decided to refer the disputed questions and answers to a fresh team of experts.
The candidates have widely appreciated PSC’s unprecedented decision and implored Chairman Deva and other members to conduct the verification process in a transparent manner and within shortest possible time and initiate exemplary action against the recently removed Secretary, Controller Examination and the “dud experts” engaged by them.
The KAS 2016 examinations are held to fill up 269 vacancies in Junior Kashmir Administrative Service, 2 in Jammu and Kashmir Police Service (gazetted) and 6 in Jammu and Kashmir Accounts Service (gazetted).