Thu. Mar 28th, 2024

This year, the examination held by the Punjab and Haryana High Court for selection to judicial services carried several ‘controversial’ questions. This brought a lot of uncalled attention and the respective court passed the order to delete these questions. Forth the deletion, the command to generate a fresh list of qualifying candidates on the basis of revised marks was passed.

A division bench, in an unparalleled judgement, held “controversial” questions with uncertain answers and expressed much disappointment over the incorrect answer keys provided subsequent to the preliminary examination held by the court and PPSC for the selection into Punjab Civil Services (Judicial).

The winds changed when an advocate, Sourabh Goel, filed a petitionon behalf of a few unsuccessful candidates who sought review of the answer keys. Few of these ill-framed questions were- What is iddat (waiting period) prescribed for a widow under Muslim law? Which among the following — grass, fruit trees, standing timber — is an immovable property? Who started Sarvodaya movement? While answering the first question, a few candidates picked option (A) – four lunar months and ten days. Apparently, the original answer key accepted it as the correct option.

Twisted as it is, when pointed out by several candidates that the correct answer is four months, ten days and not “lunar” months, a freshly-appointed committee by the court changed the answer keys after declaration of the result. When the court got dragged into the situation, the two sides put up with their arguments on the bass of two different authors. Dismissing the situation, the came down to saying that- “the committee appears to have unnecessarily given in to the objections raised against the original proposed answer (A)”.

The statement put up by the court was “notwithstanding the position that Mohammedan law is by and large un-codified”, there can be no controversy on the position that a month must mean a lunar month as per the calendar applicable to Muslims.

The court further came up with the argument as depending on the source of information could invite diverse answers legitimately to needlessly controversial questions. The exam had about a dozen mistakes, ranging right from misprint to the above mentioned ill-framed and error-ed questions and wrong answer keys. To the question, “Who started Sarvodaya movement?”, a few candidates picked “Vinoba Bhave” as the answer while others opted for “Mahatma Gandhi”.

At the time when a couple of  candidates claimed that that the correct answer has to be “Mahatma Gandhi” because he came up with the term ‘Sarvodaya’, the committee, again quick to change, changed the correct answer from “Vinoba Bhave” to “Mahatma Gandhi”. “We cannot be unmindful of the fact that this particular question legitimately invites diverse answers depending upon the source from which information leading to an answer has emanated,” the court stated.  “We are of the opinion that this is a needlessly controversial question and certainly does not go about testing a candidate’s analytical ability,” the court said further.

Given the final word, the desk of judges has ordered for the evaporation of such questions so as to “preclude prejudice to any given section of candidates” and commanded to generate a fresh list of qualified candidates.

READ: DU LLB Entrance exam: Unsuitable questions, lack of order

READ: Students, Employees using fake caste certificate to lose degree, job : Supreme Court

By Rupal