CHANDIGARH: Barely 10% of the latest batch of
Punjab Civil Services (executive branch) officers have cleared two crucial departmental exams that would have given them magisterial powers. This has left many in the government wondering what has suddenly gone wrong – has the
exam bar been raised or has the quality of new officers dropped?
The failures have also created a dilemma in the government as it can’t give these officers magisterial powers without them passing the exams. The Civil Services (Departmental Examination)
Punjab Rules, 2014, state that until a
PCS officer clears the criminal law paper with 66.66% marks, he or she cannot be given the powers of an executive magistrate. At the same time, an officer who fails to get 66.66% in the revenue law paper, cannot be given the powers of a grade I assistant collector or collector.
With a large number of cases starting to pile up in magisterial courts, the Punjab government is even planning to give magisterial powers of a sub-divisional magistrate (SDM) to PCS officers who have got at least 50% marks.
In fact, some officers wonder why the 2014 rules set the pass percentage at almost 67% when UPSC’s pass percentage is 50%. A senior officer told TOI that the state government has started the process of amending the rules to lower the pass percentage to 50. But the officers will not be granted the next increment till they clear the two exams with 66.6%.
Sources, however, added that just 10% passing the exam is unacceptable by any standard given that the officers are allowed to carry reference books into the exam centre.
“There are many PCS officers who have failed in their third attempt this time,” said an officer. In such a scenario, the state government is either forced to hand over charge of two SDMs to a single eligible officer or appoint an SDM without magisterial powers which hampers day-to-day functions.
The existing rule says, “All the members of service shall qualify the examination within a period of one and a half years from the date of their appointment to the service. The members of the service shall be given only four chances.” As per rules, PCS officers need to obtain 55% marks in civil law, developmental laws, industrial and commercial laws, local government laws and public service laws.
The state government is yet to act against five PCS officers who failed to clear the exam even in the fifth attempt (a mercy chance granted by chief minister
Amarinder Singh) in October last year. Among these, two direct recruit PCS officers who face dismissal as per rules are
Latif Ahmed and
Amrinder Singh Tiwana. The three other PCS officers appointed on the basis of merit-cum-seniority from various state departments and now need to be reverted back to their parent departments are Pritpal Singh, Ram Singh and
Subhash Chander Khatak. Their file is still pending with the chief minister, confirmed a senior officer.
Representative image 
