Decide MCSCCE 2016 case within 8 weeks: SC to HC

By Our Staff Reporter
IMPHAL, Aug 10: The Supreme Court has 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.
Acting on a special leave petition filed by one Nelojit Mayengbam and another, the apex Court passed an order to this effect on August 5.
Speaking to media persons at Manipur Press Club here today, the Group of Aspirants spokesperson Keisham Kishan said that 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, Kishan said.    
The Court also instructed the Manipur Public Service Commission (MPSC) to amend exam conduct rules before the next exam is 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 full enquiry, Kishan said.
The enquiry committee submitted its report on July 9, 2018. Some of the discrepancies and errors as pointed out in the enquiry report 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, the spokesperson said.