BHUBANESWAR: Amid allegations of irregularities in the assistant section officer (ASO) results, chairman of Odisha Public Service Commission (OPSC) Satyajit Mohanty on Tuesday asserted the examination and recruitment process have been held with transparency.
Addressing a media conference, Mohanty said as per the Orissa High Court directive, OPSC will publish the answer keys, cut-off marks and marks of all ASO aspirants once the final results are out. “Merit is the only criteria in qualifying such examinations. The OPSC has been following it,” he said.
Claiming that the controversies surrounding the exam results are baseless, he said the commission while preparing the provisional list of candidates for document verification and skill test, followed the provision stipulated in the advertisement that the OPSC shall be competent to fix up the qualifying marks in any or all the subjects of the examination.
Mohanty explained that the test was carried out in three papers - general awareness; mental ability, reasoning and mathematics; and language with 400 marks each. After a written test, shortlisted candidates were allowed to appear for a computer application skill test which is qualifying in nature.
A total of 1,104 candidates qualified in the written examination for ASO posts on August 27 this year of the 1,48,888 aspirants who had appeared for the test, which is approximately 1.5 times of the advertised 796 vacancies. “Each allegation was unfounded. A centre-wise distribution of shortlisted candidates showedcandidates from 415 centres out of 433 centres qualified with minimum cut-off marks,” Mohanty said.
After results were out, some aspirants alleged irregularities. Accusations of posts being sold off for Rs 15 to Rs 20 lakh and absent examinees being shortlisted were also levelled. The aspirants petitioned the HC which on November 14 refused to entertain the pleas and asked OPSC to publish the results.