Litigation, outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic, and alleged political intervention have caused an inordinate delay in the conduct of the oral test (interview) for candidates who qualified the Group-I Mains examination, the notification for which was released in 2018.
Amidst fresh allegations of irregularities, the Andhra Pradesh Public Service Commission (APPSC) is set to conduct interviews for the qualified candidates from June 15.
Deviating from the pattern of conducting the interviews by a single board, the commission will constitute three boards, comprising two members, senior All-India Services officers, and subject experts. Each Board will interview 10 candidates on each day, according to sources.
After releasing the notification in 2018, the commission had conducted the Prelims in 2019 and the Mains in December 2020. The results were declared in April 2021, but they were marred by controversies of “irregularities” on account of digital evaluation of the answer sheets. Candidates who did not find their name in the list went to the High Court seeking justice.
On October 1, 2021, the High Court, in its verdict, observed that the commission did not convey in the notification about the digital valuation. It also found “procedural error” and set aside the results, and directed the commission to do a manual evaluation of the answer sheets and release the results in three months.
The new Chairman of the commission, D. Goutam Sawang, and Secretary Ahmed Babu monitored the conventional manual evaluation of the answer sheets by organising three evaluation camps under “strict regulation,” the sources said.
The result, released on May 26, kicked up a fresh row as only 38% of the candidates whose names were in the digital evaluation list, found their names in the manual evaluation list too, while 62% of the candidates whose names were not in the list were up in arms.
“The answer sheets were evaluated by 16-19 examiners following due process and every possible effort was made to make it a fool-proof exercise,” said an official.
Referring to the proposed three boards, he pointed to the fact that the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) had five boards, and informed that the boards would be constituted through draw of lots in a transparent manner.
‘Doubts persist’
Meanwhile, members of the Andhra Pradesh Unemployed Joint Action Committee (JAC) has demanded that the APPSC officials clear the doubts persisting on the selection process before conducting the interviews.
JAC State president S. Hemanth Kumar said discrepancies had crept into both digital and manual evaluation of the answer sheets.
“The only way to ensure justice is to either call all the candidates (digital and manual) for interview or cancel the 2018 Group-I examinations,” he said.
