Shillong, July 27: The Meghalaya Public Service Commission (MPSC) on Friday said the charges of nepotism, favouritism and deviation from the normal process of conduct of examinations are baseless.

In a statement, the MPSC said that after declaring and notifying the results of the additional list of 62 candidates qualified to appear for the MCS (Mains) examinations, the Commission has been alleged with the charges of nepotism and favouritism etc.

The Commission clarified that transparency and confidentiality at the highest level was maintained.

Hence, to assure the general public and the candidates, the Commission clarified that most, if not all public examinations have a mechanism for a candidate to appeal against any faulty Question/ Answer to address the grievance of a candidate. The same yardstick and policy is adopted by MPSC.

It said that all measures have been taken to ensure that the questions set by the Question Setter/ Examiner are error free. However, despite all these precautions and efforts, errors do occur at times. The same is the case with most of the top recruitment authorities of the nation.

The MPSC said that after declaration of result of MCS Preliminary Examination, one complainant filed a petition to the Commission on 25th January, 2024 seeking Answer Key for the said examination. Answer Key was accordingly supplied to the complainant on 6th February, 2024.

The said petitioner submitted a representation to the Commission stating that the Official Answer Key to 3(three) questions were wrong. He submitted his petition along with documents on 9th February, 2024 to support his claim.

The MPSC said that on receiving the representation, an internal review of the claims of the petitioner was immediately done. Thereafter, the Commission decided to call for a 3rd party to verify and evaluate the claim of the complainant. Accordingly, an expert was engaged to review only the correctness of 3 (three) questions which were challenged as wrong answer key.

“The Expert after examining the questions and the answers, agreed that the errors have occurred. The commission took the matter seriously and decided to comply for the reassessment of the OMR sheets only for those three questions,” it said.

“It may be mentioned here that: (i) the 3 (three) questions carry 2 (two) marks each, making a total of six marks. If the candidate gets all the three answers correct he/she gets six marks. The re-assessment was made for the three questions only that are challenged and the entire OMR sheet was not re-assessed. The cut off marks for different category for MCS Preliminary Examination as declared on 15th December 2023 vide Notification No. MPSC/Ex-C/50/2021-2022/133 are as follows: UR = 112, KJ = 92, Garo = 84 and OST/SC = 86,” it said.

The MPSC said that those candidates after re-assessment of 3 questions whose marks are as per the cut-off mark and above are considered eligible and included in the Additional List. A total of 62 candidates were found to have qualified and notified in the Additional List.

The Commission has, in order to ensure fairness and do justice to the complaint as the official answer key was wrong, decided to give opportunity to him and others who have not filed petition.

“As outlined in the Notification, instead of offering relief to only the petitioner, the doctrine of equality was applied to all 13,451 candidates [for re-assessment of the 3 (three) questions only, while keeping the remaining questions intact], out of which 62 fresh candidates secured the cut-off, in addition to the 580 candidates of the first list are declared to have qualified for the MCS (Mains) Examination. Hence the charges Of nepotism, favoritism and deviation from the normal process of conduct of examinations are baseless,” it said.

Also Read: Anil Antony visits Shillong after appointment as Meghalaya in-charge

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