Cuttack, Nov. 2: The Odisha Civil Service (Preliminary) Examination-2015 is due on November 8, but the fate of the candidates who had appeared in the OCS (Main) Examination-2011 over a year ago, are still in a limbo.

Their wait is because the Odisha Public Service Commission (OPSC) is yet to declare the preliminary examination results after re-evaluation of the answer sheets.

The results of the OCS (Preliminary) Examination-2011, held on January 19, 2014, was invalidated on June 18 this year as the OPSC had awarded full marks to candidates for the wrong questions in 18 of the 26 optional subjects.

While quashing the results, the State Administrative Tribunal (SAT) had directed the OPSC to come up with a fresh merit list after re-evaluating the answer sheets of the 18 subjects by awarding full marks to only those who had attempted the incorrect questions. The tribunal, however, did not fix any deadline for the re-evaluation results.

OPSC secretary Krushna Prasad Pati today said: "The re-evaluation of the answer sheets is in progress. We expect to be ready to declare the fresh merit list as per the SAT direction by end of November."

The tribunal had, in its order, also said: "In the fresh merit list prepared, there is a possibility of names of some candidates, who have already appeared in the main examination may not appear; such candidates are to be treated as disqualified from the preliminary examination as well as treated to have been eliminated from the main examination."

The OPSC had held the OCS (Preliminary) Examination-2011 on January 19, 2014. Of the 35,200 candidates who had taken the test, only 5,823 were declared qualified for the main examination on May 2, 2014. The main examination was held in September last year.

The OCS examination-2011 is being conducted for filling up 364 Class II posts for Odisha Administrative Service (30), Odisha Police Service (15), Odisha Cooperative Service (10), Odisha Revenue Service (100) and Odisha Taxation and Accounts Service (209).

Rourkela resident Priyambada Das, 34, who had failed to clear the preliminary test, had challenged the SAT order in high court alleging that the direction to give marks only to those candidates, who had attempted the wrong questions, was "self-contradictory" and "illegal".

Though a stay on the tribunal order was sought, the high court had on September 5 refused to stay the process of re-evaluation of answer sheets while articulating its concern over the delay in the completion of the OCS Examination-2011 due to the dispute over the evaluation of answer sheets of the preliminary exam.