Cuttack, Sept. 3: Orissa High Court today refused to derail Odisha Civil Services (Main) Examination–2011, which is scheduled to be held by the Odisha Public Service Commission from September 6.

The division bench of Justice Pradip Mohanty and Justice Biswajit Mohanty allowed the commission to go ahead with the examination, but clarified that it would be subject to the final outcome of the petition.

“The commission will conduct the main examination but not proceed with the evaluation of answer scripts but keep them in sealed cover until further orders,” the court specified in its order.

The court issued the interim order, taking note of the commission’s plea that it had already “spent around Rs 80 lakh from the state exchequer” for conducting the preliminary examination, evaluating answer papers and making preparations for holding the main examination.

The high court imposed restriction on implementation of a State Administrative Tribunal order that had quashed the Odisha Civil Services (Preliminary) Exam–2011 results and directed the commission to prepare a fresh selection list within two months after eliminating faulty questions and negative marking.

The commission had filed a petition, challenging the tribunal order and seeking intervention against it to conduct the main examination according to the schedule from September 6 to 30.

“Hence, at this juncture, if the direction of the tribunal is implemented, it will cause irreparable loss and affect larger interest of the public and a large number of candidates, who have no objection with regard to the manner of conducting the test,” commission secretary Goswami Golam Debata had said.

The court further directed the commission to allow the eight candidates, who had challenged the preliminary exam result in the tribunal, to appear in the main examination.

The eight candidates, who failed to qualify for the main test, had alleged that the preliminary examination results declared by the commission was skewed as grace marks (full marks) were given for faulty questions in 18 of the 26 optional subjects.

In its order on August 26, the tribunal’s acting chairman S.N. Dash had said: “Any provision of grace marks for candidates is anathema to the case of a competitive examination where best candidates out of the lot are to be selected. In view of above, I quash consequential action taken on that basis and direct the commission to calculate marks of candidates by eliminating the faulty questions and negative marking and the marks be prorated to full marks as elucidated above. They may then prepare select list of candidates on that basis for appearing in the main examination. This may be done within a period of two months.”

The commission had conducted the OCS (Preliminary) Exam–2011 on January 19. Nearly 35,200 candidates took the test. On May 2, the commission declared that 5,823 candidates qualified to take the main test.

Earlier, the commission’s plea was opposed by the petitioner’s counsel on the ground that the results published after giving grace marks was “illegal” and “discriminatory” in a competitive exam as “merit is the main criteria not grace, extra mark or excess mark”. Besides, “giving extra marks on different subjects in wrong questions is not within the domain of the commission”.

The commission counsel countered that the method of evaluation (full marks for wrong question) was adopted as a gesture transparency and it had inherent power and prerogative to adopt it.

The exam will be held in five zones — Balasore, Sambalpur, Berhampur, Cuttack and Bhubaneswar.