SC vacates stay, asks SSC to declare 2017 results

NEW DELHI: In a big relief to around 1.9 lakh candidates who had taken 2017 SSC test for nearly 9,372 vacancies in central government jobs, the Supreme Court on Thursday allowed Staff Selection Commissions to declare the result and allowed Centre to proceed with the recruitment process .
The exam was conducted between February 17 and February 22 last year but it was marred by leak of question paper which was widely circulated on social media. The government thereafter ordered a CBI probe and the Supreme Court in August last year restrained SSC from declaring the result .
But the bench of Justices Justice S A Bobde and S Abdul Nazeer made it clear that any recruitment by Centre will be subject to final outcome of the case. Advocate Govind Jee appearing for a batch of students agreed with the bench proposal to allow declaration of result.
The CBI in its status report said the paper was leaked before scheduled time of exam and candidates used remote access software for solving their papers by means of outside help. It also said some of the SSC officials were also involved in the leak and further probe was needed to track the culprit and the candidates who benefited by adopting illegal means.