Srinagar: Jammu and Kashmir High Court on Friday stayed “further selection process” in KAS examination 2016 amid complaints of irregularities in the mains examination by J&K Public Service Commission.
“Meanwhile, till next date of hearing, there shall be stay of further selection process,” said a division bench of Chief Justice Gita Mittal and Justice Sanjeev Kumar while hearing a suo-moto petition.
The directions by the court followed submissions by a number of aggrieved candidates, who were present in person and raised issues with regard to KAS examination notification of 2016.
They alleged irregularities in the J&K Public Service Commission Combined Competitive (Mains) examination held from 24 July to 08 August 2018.
Last week, the J&K PSC had said that the allegations regarding discrepancies in Combined Competitive (Mains) Examination-2016 were completely unwarranted.
Regarding the introduction of on-screen method of evaluation, JKPSC v chairman, Latief-uz-Zaman Deva, said that it is in no way change of pattern as it only supplements and complements technologically the evaluation process and techniques.
He also said that newly introduced digital method was already being adopted by various examination bodies of different states like Gujarat and Rajasthan with an aim to bring in more efficiency and transparency in the system besides ensuring error-free results.
Highlighting the difference between the manual and on-screen method, JKPSC Chairman said the only difference between the two is that in the manual mode of evaluation, the manual copies of the scripts are sent to the evaluators for assessment of the performance of the candidates wherein marks are awarded and recorded manually, while in onscreen evaluation of the answer scripts, the answer booklets are uploaded to the data center, wherefrom they are retrieved by the officials at local data center for display in the readable platform (computer) which is accessed by the evaluators through use of unique log-in IDs.
Deva dispelled the notion of some aggrieved candidates that in onscreen method of evaluation instead of evaluators assessing the performance based on the answers written by the candidates, computer does the evaluation as being done in evaluating OMR sheets of preliminary examination. “In onscreen method also, the evaluation is done by the designated evaluators, however, without using paper or pen,” he said.
“We are confident that the result is error-free as it has gone through several checks and cross-checks inherent in the system,” he had said.
Regarding the switching over the digital mode of evaluation, Deva had said that there is already a provision in the Jammu and Kashmir Conduct of Examination Rules, 2005 envisaging switching over to the digital mode of evaluation in a gradual manner and in such of examination, as the Commission would decide.
