Alleged discrepancies in the 5th State Civil Services Examinations conducted by Jharkhand Public Service Commission created uproar in the Assembly on Friday as demands of cancellation and initiating a probe into the examination process dominated all the three sessions of the Assembly leading to back-to-back adjournments of Friday’s proceedings. The din in the Assembly finally led to adjournment of the House till February 29.
As the bell rang in the Assembly, JMM MlAs jumped into the well of the House during the question hour with banners demanding probe into the matter and stalled proceedings to express anguish over declaration of the result. The commotion led to the suspension of proceedings for one-hour. The Opposition stayed adamant on their demand of cancelling the examination as the House reassembled after the first adjournment.
Even as the Opposition upped the ante, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Saryu Roy tried in vain to pacify the opposition parties with the State government's position on the contentious issue. The opposition refused to listen to the reply from Chief Minister Raghubar Das and stuck to their demand. Reacting to the opposition parties’ stand, the State government declined to interfere in the matter which is sub-judice.
"JPSC says that it had obtained the High Court’s permission to declare results. So, it deems that the High Court has no objection in the declaration of results. As long as the matter is sub-judice, the Government is not going to poke its nose," added Roy.
Nonetheless, the opposition persistently raised their demand and attempted to put the government in dock with allegations of large scale irregularities in the whole process of examination. leader of the Opposition Hemant Soren hit back at the government for not pulling JPSC to task while he also pressed for inquiry by the central agency.
"We have nothing to do with the 5th JPSC examination. Entire process started in 2015 and in the present government's tenure. Examination was conducted on questions set in 2014 which was distributed to a particular institute to help few students clear the examination. We demand a CBI inquiry into this matter," said Soren.
The issue became a bone of contention between the State government and the principal opposition party, the JMM and all efforts of Speaker Dinesh Oraon to break the ice came to naught on Friday. The Speaker held meetings with the State government and opposition parties to arrive at some sort of agreement however the JMM alleged that the government has kept the House in dark by not answering questions put previously by the party MlAs. As many as two rounds of discussion were convened by the Speaker to end the deadlock; however, disagreement further deepened leading to a complete commotion on Friday. “One meeting was held on day before Wednesday and one on Thursday. The CM had categorically told the opposition that since the matter is in court the government will not interfere. However they (opposition) wanted stay on the results and government to take a call on the findings of the probe,” confided Chhatarpur MlA, Radha Krishna Kishore.