HC quashes MCSCCE 2016, orders CBI probe within 3 months

By Our Staff Reporter
IMPHAL, Oct 18: In what could be a moral boosting victory for young civil services aspirants and advocates of clean, transparent civil services exams, the High Court of Manipur has quashed the Manipur Civil Services Combined Competitive Examination (MCSCCE) 2016 conducted by Manipur Public Service Commission (MPSC).
The High Court has also directed CBI, New Delhi to investigate the conduct of the MCSCC (Main) Exam 2016 by the MPSC within a period of three months and take appropriate action thereafter in accordance with law.
A judgement passed by a Special Division Bench of the High Court comprising of Justice Lanusungkum Jamir and Justice Kh Nobin further quashed and set aside the orders issued by the Department of Personnel, Deputy Secretary on June 22, 2017 and June 26, 2017 as well as the order issued by the Deputy Secretary (Revenue) on June 23, 2017.
However, it is open to the MPSC to conduct the MCSCC (Main) Exam 2016 afresh after issuing due notice to the candidates, reads the High Court’s order.
Advocate G Puspa and Advocate RK Deepak appeared on behalf of the petitioners while Senior Advocate A Bimol, Advocate N Ibohanbi and Advocate N Jotendra represented the respondents.
Meanwhile, speaking to media persons at Manipur Press Club here today, Group of Aspirants MPSC spokesperson Keisham Kishan remarked that the High Court of Manipur has cancelled appointment of many State Government employees for the first time.
He said that employment orders of 82 candidates selected through the MCSCCE 2016 have been cancelled by the High Court.
The High Court passed the landmark verdict after perusing two petitions filed in 2017 and 2018.
Notably, a directive issued by the Supreme Court on August 5 this year categorically asked the High Court of Manipur to decide the pending case pertaining to the controversial Manipur Civil Services Combined Competitive (Main) Examination 2016 within eight weeks.
Soon after results of the MCSCCE 2016 were declared, some candidates filed a petition at the High Court of Manipur on October 13, 2016 seeking cancellation of the same exam.
The High Court disposed the petition on February 28, 2017 with a clear instruction  that the petitioners may obtain photocopies of their answer sheets as well as of those selected candidates by invoking the RTI Act and they may lodge complaints at a proper forum if they (petitioners) find evaluation errors in the answer script.   
The Court also instructed the Manipur Public Service Commission (MPSC) to amend exam conduct rules before the next exam was held.
As instructed by the High Court, the petitioners obtained photocopies of their answer scripts and they found many evaluation and other errors. Subsequently, they filed another petition at the same Court.
Acting on the petition, the High Court constituted a two-member enquiry committee and the committee probed into the anomalies and errors detected in the answer scripts.
In the meantime, some selected candidates filed a special leave petition praying that the enquiry should be restricted to the answer scripts of the petitioners (unsuccessful candidates) and theirs should be excluded.
An interim order issued by the High Court in connection with the special leave petition directed that the enquiry should be restricted to answer scripts of the petitioners only.
However, the petitioners lodged a complaint challenging the same order and when the special leave petition was disposed, the Court ordered a full enquiry.
The enquiry committee submitted its report on July 9, 2018. Some of the discrepancies and errors as pointed out in the enquiry report and published earlier included absence of examiners’ and supervisors’ signatures on a large number of answer scripts, manipulation of marks without signatures of examiners, allotment of marks without evaluating answer scripts etc.
According to the Group of Aspirants, some unsuccessful candidates filed a petition at the High Court of Manipur on October 13, 2016 after results of the MCSCCE 2016 were declared after a gap of just 10 days.
This was followed by several writ petitions at the High Court and the matter ultimately reached the Supreme Court.