SC orders Manipur civil services examination to be conducted afresh

The Supreme Court on Friday upheld an order passed by the Manipur High Court which had quashed Manipur civil services examination conducted by Manipur Public Service Commission (MPSC) in 2016 and allowed it to be conducted afresh.

A bench of Justices M Shantanagoudar and Sanjiv Khanna also upheld the High Court's direction to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to conduct a time-bound investigation into the conduct of the exam.

Last month, the Manipur High Court had, in a landmark verdict, quashed the result of the examination conducted by MPSC.

Over 100 candidates who appeared in the exam had moved the high court alleging "various anomalies, irregularities and illegalities" in the examination. The examination was for filling up 82 posts of different categories in the state service.

The candidates contended that the result of the mains exam was declared "in haste", since the examination concluded on September 23, 2016, and the result were declared on October 4, 2016.

It means that the MPSC took only about 11 days to check and evaluate a total of 9040 answer scripts, the petitioners argued.

They further contended that MPSC does not maintain any guidelines for "coding, checking, evaluating the answer scripts" and these were done in a "haphazard and whimsical manner", thereby causing serious flaws.

The petitioners also urged the High Court to set up a High-Level Probe Committee to investigate the matter.