Next hearing on 17 Sept
[ Nellie N Manpoong ]
NAHARLAGUN, Sep 12: The legal counsel for the commerce candidates who had appeared for the prelims of the Arunachal Pradesh Public Service Combined Competitive Examination (APPSCCE) described the affidavit submitted by the Arunachal Pradesh Public Service Commission (APPSC) in response to the writ petition filed earlier by commerce candidates in the High Court as “vague.”
“The affidavit is vague, with little to no detail regarding the subject expert committee it claims to have constituted for evaluation of the grievances cited by the commerce candidates,” the counsel, Sunil Mow, said on Wednesday evening, after the APPSC had submitted its affidavit at the Itanagar bench of the Gauhati High Court here.
Mow said the next hearing has been listed for 17 September, when the counsel will respond to the commission’s affidavit.
The APPSC said in its affidavit that it considered the issues placed by the first two candidates who had approached the commission a day after the examination, on 30 July.
The two had claimed that 64 questions were out of syllabus.
The commission is then said to have referred the matter to a subject expert committee, which found that 49 questions were out of syllabus, seven were of general nature, and the remaining eight were from the syllabus.
The commission is said to have told the court that it “adequately compensated” for the 49 questions and declared the results on 2 August only after redressing the grievances.
The APPSC also questioned the other commerce candidates for coming up with their complaints late on 20 August.
It also said the certificates provided by Prof Otem Padung of Rajiv Gandhi University and Prof K Rajendra Babu of the Indira Gandhi Government College with regard to the claims of out-of-syllabus questions were devoid of merit as they were not in the approved panel maintained by the APPSC.
The counsel for the candidates reiterated that such vague arguments did not address the issues raised by the candidates with any clarity.
“We will respond in court on 17 September,” Mow said.
Speaking to this daily, the commission clarified that it could not publicly reveal the identity of the subject experts, details of the calculation used, marks secured, etc, and that official records could be furnished only to the court.
Reportedly, the three commerce candidates who had qualified for the mains have also placed a petition before the APPSC to exempt them from appearing for the prelims the third time in case the high court directs that fresh examinations be conducted.