A section of candidates who wrote the preliminary examination for posts under Kerala Administrative Services (KAS), has moved the Kerala Administrative Tribunal alleging serious irregularities in the selection process and has asked for their intervention in the matter urgently. In their plea, the candidates have sought directions from the tribunal to quash the selection process and initiate fresh proceedings in accordance with law for the selection.
Kerala Administrative Services is the highest civil post under the state services. According to reports, while a section of answer sheets were assessed with the help of software, a section of papers were corrected manually. The job aspirants alleged that manual valuation of 18,000 answer sheets by employees of the Kerala Public Service Commission (KPSC) resulted in favouritism, nepotism and political patronage in the selection conducted to key posts under the Government of Kerala.
They alleged that the time period granted for revaluation and obtaining copy of answer sheets was drastically reduced from 45 days to 15 days so as to eliminate and exclude meritorious candidates from approaching the KPSC for revaluation and obtaining photocopy of the answer sheets.
Considering the plea, the Acting Chairman of the Tribunal, Benny Gervasis and member Rajesh Dewan, directed the KPSC to inform its stand on the matter by November 19. The move came even as the KAS main examination is scheduled on November 20 and 21.
Meanwhile, considering the pleas filed by the candidates, the Kerala High Court on Tuesday ordered the state government to file a statement responding to this. The candidates have approached the court seeking its intervention for directing a high-level independent and impartial inquiry into the alleged irregularities in the selection process.
Earlier, a section of candidates had come out alleging that multiple questions which came for the exam were copied as such from study material of a private coaching centre. The candidates pointed out that the question paper even had the same mistakes as the questions in the study material.
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