High court raps HSSC, chief examiner for errors

CHANDIGARH: Punjab and Haryana high court has pulled up the chief examiner of the Haryana Staff Selection Commission (HSSC) for not removing wrong answers before compiling final result in a competitive examination, terming his role as "highly reprehensible". The HC has also ordered his removal from the future selection process.
Indicting the commission for casual approach on such sensitive issues, the high court also asked the chairman and the members of HSSC to "be aware of the fact that they are dealing with the lives and careers of far too many citizens to adopt such a callous attitude in publishing results even after receiving objections."

Justice Amol Rattan Singh passed these orders while hearing a petition filed by Megha Rani of Panchkula, who had complained about errors in questions in the written examination conducted by HSSC for the post of statistical assistant.

The chief examiner of the commission, who had earlier denied of anything wrong in the questions even when he was given adequate proof regarding the same, admitted the fault before the HC.

"It is directed that the chief examiner, who has been consulted, shall not be appointed by the commission further in the future selection processes," ordered Justice Singh in its detailed order released on Wednesday.

In this case, the petitioner had appeared for the written examination on December 18, 2016 for post of statistical assistant, which was advertised by the HSSC in July 2015. On January 4, 2017, the commission uploaded the answer keys of the examination and invited objections from the candidates.

The petitioner was interviewed and the final selection result was declared in which she was placed in the waiting list. Petitioner's counsel Sumeet Goel argued that despite the objection raised by her about the errors in three questions, the same was not rectified by the commission and final result was prepared by calculating marks of the wrong answers.

During the hearing, the chief examiner accepted his mistake and submitted that it happened due to "over sightedness."

Goel further argued that in view of the fact that the chief examiner himself had admitted that they were actually wrong, the entire selection process should be scrapped.

The HC, however, refused to scrap the entire result and asked the HSSC to revise the complete result of the examination by January 11, 2018.