BHUBANESWAR: Inordinate delay in conducting examination to the State civil services (Orissa Administrative Service) has demoralised the OAS aspirants.
W hile blaming the Orissa Public Service Commission (OPSC) for the delay, the OAS aspirants are planning to stage a demonstration here and the OPSC office at Cuttack on December 16.
Although the OPSC invited applications for recruitment to the Orissa Administrative Service in August 2006, the preliminary examination was held on May 12, 2007. However, the preliminary results were out nine months later after a protracted battle in various courts over the reservation issue.
O PSC published results of 3,730 successful candidates after the Orissa High Court upheld an order of the State Administrative Tribunal (SAT) on reservation issue conforming to the Supreme Court order to restrict reservation in Government jobs to 50 per cent.
A s OPSC published the list of successful candidates ignoring the court order, the list was challenged in the High Court which referred the matter to the SAT for final judgment.
T he SAT verdict came a few days before the scheduled date of the main examination and the tribunal directed OPSC to publish the names of 778 candidates in the unreserved category who were left out due to increase in the quota for candidates of the other backward classes. It further directed the commission to postpone the main examination by another three months to give time for the leftout candidates for preparation.
O PSC appealed in the HC against the SAT order on the ground of inconvenience and financial loss. The HC rejected the SAT order and allowed OPSC to conduct the main examination as per the schedule. It, however, put a restriction on the publication of results till the final order of the tribunal.
A ccordingly, the main examination was held on May 27, 2008, a year after the preliminary examination.
I n its September 2 order, the SAT directed the OPSC to publish the names leftout candidates within a month and conclude the second phase main examination preferably within four months from the date of this order. Meanwhile, the OPSC has published the names of the leftout candidates. The date of the second phase main examination is yet to be finalised.
Ironically, OAS recruitment process started after a gap of six years. The last recruitment was done in 2001.