The Jharkhand Public Service Commission (JPSC), which conducted combined Civil Services Mains examinations in May, the fifth in the past 14 years, seems to have made little headway with students embarking on a fast-unto-death on the pavement near the Governor House in order to protest against the rejections of their candidature from the examination.
“This has never happened in the history of any of such civil services examinations in any part of the country wherein the papers have been straight away rejected. The mains examination copies cannot be rejected as they are checked manually by the examiners. We are ready to sit for the interview with the selected candidates on any subjects and challenge to beat them on the same. This is definitely a scam of the highest order to disqualify the well-deserving students. Why should we suffer and why can’t they give us a proper explanation,” said Imam Shamim, one of the protesting candidates who have been fasting for the past nine days.
Copies of 618 students out of the total 2,000 who appeared for the mains examination were rejected on grounds of technical and other confidential issues, according to PK Siddharth, President, Bhartiya Suraaj Dal, who has also joined the agitation. “Previously, none of the JPSC authorities were admitting to the fact that there have been rejections of such a high number of candidates. Now, after approaching the examination controller of JPSC several times, he admitted that there have been rejections but also suggested that there’s no need of discussing the reasons behind it. This all indicates there’s certainly something very fishy and we just want them to come out clean,” said Siddharth.
Sidhharth further narrated the huge ordeal that the group of students protesting here has been facing, including him who has also gone on a hunger strike to protest against the irregularities in the system. “The authorities should at least give a clear statement stating as to why so many students have been rejected, which has never happened in the past and that’s all we have been demanding. The students who are fasting are not keeping well and none of the officials seem to be bothered about their deteriorating condition. We have contacted almost every top official such as the JPSC Secretary Manoj Kumar Jha, Personnel Secretary Ratan Kumar, Deputy Secretary Badri Nath Choubey, Controller of Examination Vivek Narayan Akhaury, Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) working president Hemant Soren, BJP spokesperson Pradeep Sinha but to no avail,” said Siddharth.
Moreover, the protesting students seem to be undeterred by the ignorant attitude by the JPSC authorities and vow to continue fasting till they receive a concrete reply. “We have studied hard and just want to know the reason behind our rejection. This was my fourth attempt and the first time that we have been rejected on grounds of no reason. The doctors arrived to conduct the Ketone test after nine days of us fasting, which shows how much the authorities are bothered. We want to know the truth and would not stop fasting or go away anywhere, even if it leads to our death,” warned Rajiv Kumar, another protesting student.
Meanwhile, things to be taken into consideration are the irregularities that surfaced in the previous four examinations as well. The skeletons from the JPSC’s cupboard only tumbled out way back in 2010 when an FIR was lodged against former member Gopal Prasad Singh.
Singh was accused of being the mastermind behind the irregularities in not only the written exams but also in the interviews. These many number of rejections at the mains exam and the result being online and offline on the website too often in the past few days, can be indicating towards a scam story, said a protesting student.