The Uttar Pradesh Public Service Commission (UPPSC) on Monday told the Allahabad High Court that it has found five officials guilty and suspended three of them in the course of its investigation into unfair means adopted during the UP Judicial Service Civil Judge (Junior Division) Examination, 2022[Shravan Pandey v. State of Uttar Pradesh and Others].
According to the affidavit filed by the UPPSC, approximately 50 answer sheets of candidates who appeared for the mains exam in August 2023 were exchanged.
As per sources, a Bench of Justices Saumitra Dayal Singh and Anish Kumar Gupta on July 1 directed the State Commission Chairman to file another affidavit as the previous one filed by the Deputy Secretary did not have the entire information.
The Court also directed that the fresh affidavit detail the status of the ongoing inquiry, the number of answer sheets found, and how the results will be managed.
The matter will be next heard on July 8.
Advocates Vibhu Rai and Dhananjai Rai appeared for the petitioner.
Advocate Nisheeth Yadav represented the UPPCS.
The 2022 exam was announced in December. The preliminary exams were conducted in February 2023, followed by the mains examination in May. Subsequently, interviews were held, and the final results were declared in August 2023. Further, the marks scored by the candidates were made public in November 2023.
Dissatisfied with the marks awarded to him, petitioner Shravan Pandey filed a request under the Right to Information Act (RTI Act) in January 2024 seeking details of the distribution of marks in the six papers.
After he came to know that he had received only 47 out of 200 in the English paper, he prayed that his answer sheets be also shown to him.
When he went through the answer sheets, he found that they did not have his handwriting. He also discovered that the answers on the Hindi paper’s answer script were “scored off” in the final 3-4 pages. This prompted Pandey to approach the High Court.
On a previous hearing, the High Court had directed the State Commission to furnish the candidate Pandey’s answer sheets for all six papers so that his handwriting could be compared.
The Commission later informed the High Court that it was looking into a candidate’s allegation that his answer sheets had been tampered with.
(In puts by Ratna Singh and Anadi Tewari for Bar and Bench)