Journalism of Courage
In a setback to hundreds of job aspirants demanding cancellation of Bihar Public Service Commission exams, the Patna High Court on Friday ruled there was “no definitive evidence of malpractice” in the tests that were conducted in December last year.
A division bench headed by Acting Chief Justice Ashutosh Kumar made the observation while dismissing a bunch of petitions challenging the Combined Competitive Exams (CCE) (Preliminary) held on December 13 last year at more than 900 centres across the state.
The bench, which also included Justice Partha Sarathy, asked the commission to “carry out the mains examination, ensuring that the process is peaceful, fair and transparent”.
The CCE prelims had run into a controversy on account of a “boycott” of the tests by hundreds of candidates, all of whom had been assigned the Bapu Pariksha Parisar in the state capital.
The candidates, who had alleged that the question paper was “leaked”, appeared for their tests weeks later when the administration dispersed them across a dozen exam centres across the city.
However, this was resented by several other candidates who alleged that they were being denied a “level playing field” and that there were complaints of irregularities at more than 100 examination centres.
The protesters, who staged an indefinite dharna to press the demand for re-examination, received support from leader of the opposition Tejashwi Yadav and his allies in the INDIA bloc.
Soon afterwards, Jan Suraaj Party founder Prashant Kishor jumped on the bandwagon, pledging legal assistance to the protesters, and going on a “fast unto death” which was called off within a fortnight by the 47-year-old leader upon the advice of doctors monitoring his health.
