Kashmir Reader: Srinagar: Saturday, August 26, 2017.
The Jammu and
Kashmir High Court on Friday disposed a writ petition challenging the KAS-2016
selection list and directed the J&K government to treat the petition as
representation and process it in accordance with law within a period of four
weeks.
Advocate
Azhar-ul-Amin representing Public Service Commission stated in the court that
KAS examination is scheduled to take place in the month of November and
government will consider the petition before the examination and dispatched
orders to the petitioners.
The Jammu and
Kashmir Public Service Commission (JKPSC), on August 9, issued a notification
following the controversy over wrong answer keys shown against 24 questions in
the preliminary examination to Kashmir Administrative Service. It declared 429
out of 6925 qualified candidates as unqualified, citing that the candidates
could not make the revised cut-off merit of 277.275 marks after applying
revised answer keys.
The High
Court stayed the notification by J&KPSC regarding the new list of
candidates.
Advocate Arif
Sikander Mir, counsel representing the petitioners – Hidayat Ahmad Mir and
others – said, “It was against Supreme Court guidelines that the KAS aspirants
who were in the first list and dropped from the second list. Earlier, the cut
off was 270.77 marks and after revaluation, they have decided to take the
cut-off to 277.275 marks. As such, all the candidates who have secured between
270 and 277 marks are out. As per Supreme Court guidelines, they cannot fix new
cut-off.
Contending
that the apex court has categorically stated that “nothing can be done with
rules that have retrospective effect”, the counsel argued the commission had
done “revaluation – as additional or subtraction is revaluation and under
rules, revaluation is not permitted.”
In an
affidavit filed before the Jammu wing of the high court, he said that the
J&KPSC was “on record” that all discrepancies were corrected before first
result was declared.
The
J&KPSC had issued the fresh prelims list after the aggrieved candidates
filed an RTI on March 24. During inspection of OMR sheets, the answer keys of
general studies and political science were exhibited without authority and
against rule, the notification reads.
Amid hue and
cry, the commission kept preliminary result in abeyance and notification for
KAS main examination was withdrawn.
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