In a new twist to the Group-I Mains exam controversy, the Andhra Pradesh Public Service Commission on Monday has proposed to delete 845 candidates from the list of “prelims qualified candidates”.
It has issued show-cause notices to these candidates, asking them to explain why their names should not be deleted within seven days.
No one knows why the APPSC has issued show-cause notices to these candidates for no fault of theirs, when the mistake was committed by the APPSC in selecting these candidates based on erroneous question papers in the prelims exam.
These 845 candidates were part of the 16,426 candidates who were earlier declared as having qualified in the prelims and eligible to appear for the Mains.
The APPSC was forced to postpone the Mains exams (which were scheduled to begin from September 3) to September 16, deferring to protests from candidates who pointed out “grave errors” in the prelims question papers.
APPSC met on Sunday and decided to revise the “prelims qualified list” by admitting errors. It had announced that an additional 1,201 candidates were qualified for prelims after errors were admitted to the already declared 16,426 qualified candidates.
The issue again led to a furore with candidates questioning the rationale behind the selection of the same 16,426 candidates even after errors were admitted and the cut-off marks were changed on account of this.
While the earlier cut-off marks were 88, it went up to 91 following admission of errors.
This has forced the APPSC to revise the merit list again. Which means 845 earlier qualified students will lose the chance to appear for the Mains exams.
The APPSC has again stuck to its policy of maintaining “utmost secrecy”.
over conducting recruitment exams. It has not bothered to release a press note or a public notice to give information on such an important issue like Group-I exam and about the change in the merit list and deletion of qualified students.
It has simply put those details on its website without informing anyone.