Cuttack, June 20: The Odisha Judicial Service (OJS) preliminary examination, conducted by the Odisha Public Service Commission (OPSC) has come under judicial scrutiny.
The OJS-2015 competitive examination is being held for direct recruitment to the cadre of civil judges. The OPSC had invited applications from law graduates for 69 posts (24 reserved for women) through an advertisement on March 12, and 2,166 candidates were allowed to take the preliminary examination on May 31.
Madhumala Bisoyee, 37, of Jatni and 18 others, who had appeared the preliminary examination, filed a petition in Orissa High Court, alleging "erroneous questions" and sought relief for it.
The petitioners sought withholding of the preliminary examination results for the main examination and direction to the OPSC "to award grace marks for all the erroneous questions". The petition came for hearing on Thursday.
"The bench of Justice B.R. Sarangi posted the matter to June 23 for hearing, along with responses from the state government and the OPSC," petitioners' counsel Bibhu Prasad Tripathy said today.
In the OJS-2015 preliminary examination, candidates were asked to appear for one paper of 100 marks with objective-type questions and multiple-choice answers. There were 100 questions of one mark each with .25 negative marks for every incorrect answer.
"A total of 15 questions out of 100 were erroneous," the petition claimed. They also claimed that they are "now unsure whether they will qualify for the written examination" and the erroneous questions had "created an unnecessary hitch" in their aspirations "as well as unnecessary mental agony".
The petitioners further claimed that it was a fit case for "interference of high court" and allowing "grace marks for each erroneous questions".
"Several questions set in the examination paper were not only out of syllabus, but also contained grammatical and typographical errors. There were also questions of which the answers were not in the options," the petition also alleged.
In the advertisement, the OPSC had specified that the candidates, who secured not less than 40 per cent marks, would be eligible for the main test. In the case of scheduled caste and scheduled tribe candidates, the cut-off mark was set at 35 per cent.
