Hunger strike in Arunachal over APPSC paper leak

Irked over the "unresponsive" attitude of the state government in resolving the Arunachal Pradesh Public Service Commission (APPSC) paper leakage mess, civil service aspirants today began a 72-hour hunger strike demanding dissolution of the present Commission.
The state government had already instituted a magisterial inquiry into the anomaly and forwarded the report to the Commission for action but the aspirants were not satisfied with the action taken and demanded President's intervention on the issue, a senior government official said.
The state government had ordered a magisterial inquiry in the question paper leakage pertaining to General Studies Paper-II of the Arunachal Pradesh Public Service Combined Competitive Examinations (APPSCCE) (Mains 2014) and appointed a senior APCS officer Hento Karga to inquire into the matter of the alleged leakage.

The report, as submitted by the magistrate, broadly recommended cancellation of the said paper and to conduct examination along with other papers as soon as possible, the official said.
It also recommended a criminal proceeding against the persons involved and suspension of four senior officers of the Commission till submission of preliminary report of either police investigation or inquiry officers under CCS conduct rules.
Personnel, Administrative Reforms and Training Commissioner K R Meena in a statement yesterday said that the state cabinet had thoroughly considered the matter of the inquiry report and sent it to the Commission, who as a follow-up suspended four officials-- Joint Secretary, Deputy Secretary, Private Secretary and PA to Joint Secretary.

"The state government has posted a senior IAS officer Ashok Kumar as Secretary to APPSC, Rupak Boje as joint secretary-cum-controller of examination and Tayi Taggu as deputy secretary APPSC to smoothly carry out the work of the Commission," the statement said.
Post September 2014, two new members of APPSC have been appointed and the Commission now has a strength of four members including Chairman APPSC.
One vacancy of member APPSC would be filled shortly which would provide three new members, of the five total, the statement said.