Shillong: The Meghalaya Public Service Commission (MPSC) has landed in a major controversy over the selection of 62 additional candidates for the Meghalaya Civil Service (MCS) after conducting a reassessment of answer sheets from the preliminary examinations held in November last year.
Allegations of irregularities surfaced regarding the questions set for the MCS Preliminary Examination in relation to the syllabus. Additionally, suspicions arose that the examination process was manipulated to favour certain candidates.
On Thursday, the MPSC defended its decision to reassess the OMR answer sheets, stating that it had received a complaint from a candidate about the questions appearing in the MCS Preliminary Examination 2022-2023 held on November 4, 2023.
The MPSC explained that the questions were reviewed by an expert, and based on the expert’s recommendations, the OMR answer sheets were reassessed, resulting in 62 candidates being declared successful in addition to those listed in the notification dated December 15, 2023.
The MPSC asserted that limiting the reassessment to the complainant would be unfair to other candidates who might have been similarly affected. Therefore, it decided to apply the “doctrine of equality,” reassessing all answer sheets and updating the list of successful candidates who secured the cut-off marks.
However, the MPSC’s decision to conduct the reassessment has sparked controversy, as there is no existing rule permitting such a review.
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Former Chief Minister and senior opposition MLA Dr Mukul Sangma issued a statement on Thursday condemning the reassessment, calling it “completely illegal” and hinting at possible nepotism.
“A criminal conspiracy to benefit a selected few cannot be ruled out and therefore requires investigation,” Dr. Sangma said, questioning the legality of the reassessment process. “Under which provision of rule has this been allowed? There’s no such rule which allows such review because if the authority has agreed that there were irregularities in respect of questions vis-à-vis the syllabus, then the examination process is flawed and irregular.”
Similarly, the opposition Voice of the People Party (VPP) raised several critical questions regarding the sudden and controversial revision of the MCS examination results.
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