HCS aspirants demand cancellation of exam

Tribune News Service

Panchkula, June 24

The Haryana Civil Services (HCS) aspirants here today raised questions over the way the civil services exams were conducted by the Haryana Public Service Commission (HPSC) and demanded the state government to pull up the commission for the same.

HCS aspirants from across the state gathered outside the HPSC office and held a ‘dharna’ demanding cancellation of the recently held HCS exam. They also submitted a memorandum to HPSC Additional Secretary Parduman Singh.

The students alleged that the examiners had copied questions from a foreign author’s book, which was a copyright violation. Besides, the examiners had mentioned two right answers for one question.

Shweta Dhull, spokesperson for the protesting students, said there was great resentment among the students about the question papers and the answers mentioned in the HCS exam. She said the government should take note of the functioning of the HPSC as the claims made by the commission about transparency were false and there was no secrecy. She said all exams were being held in haste and the commission was only interested in setting up records. She claimed the commission wanted to declare the results early so that the students could not knock the doors of the court which were closed due to summer vacation.

Dhull further said 31 changes had been made by the commission in paper one and two and by deleting 10 questions altogether, they awarded same points to everyone. She said this was being done in an exam, which has negative marking and there could not be two answers for every question, she added.

She demanded that the HPSC should cancel the HCS exam and constitute a panel of examiners as the model key of the papers had been set wrong. She warned that if the HPSC and the government did not consider their demand, they would be forced to file a petition in the high court.