Cuttack, Aug. 25: Orissa High Court today refused to stay the Odisha Civil Services (Main) Examination-2011 scheduled to begin on September 6.

A petition had sought the stay order claiming that results of the Odisha Civil Services (Preliminary) Examination- 2011 was skewed as grace marks were given in 18 of the 26 optional subjects.

The Odisha Public Service Commission (OPSC) had given the grace marks (2.5 full marks) for each question categorised as wrong/ambiguous/no option available/two answers and printing mistakes in the preliminary examination.

Priyambada Das of Rourkela, who had failed to qualify for the OCS (Main) exam, filed the petition after the State Administrative Tribunal (SAT) refused to issue an interim stay order on her petition seeking quashing of the results of the preliminary exam.

The tribunal had closed hearing and reserved judgment on Priyambada’s plea on August 20.

A division bench of Justice Pradip Mohanty and Justice Biswajit Mohanty refused to stay the OCS (Main) exam as the matter was pending before the SAT.

While disposing of Priyambada’s plea, the bench, however, directed the SAT to pass its judgment on her petition by August 28.

OPSC had conducted the OCS (Preliminary) Exam-2011 on January 19, 2014. Of the over 50,000 candidates who had appeared the test, 5,823 candidates had qualified to take the main examination.

The petition claimed that giving grace marks in a competitive exam was “illegal” and “discriminatory” 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 OPSC”.

The grace marks varied from subject to subject according to the number of incorrect questions.

As there were seven wrong questions in botany, candidates, who had the subject, got 17.5 grace marks.

“This is discrimination and unequal treatment for wrong question in a competitive exam. A candidate gets 17.5 marks for wrong questions in the question paper without testifying merit and a candidate having no wrong question in his subject gets nothing,” the petitioner contended.

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

The Odisha Civil Services (Main) Examination-2011 is scheduled to be held from September 6 to 30 in five zones – Balasore, Sambalpur, Berhampur, Cuttack and Bhubaneswar.