The Uttar Pradesh Public Service Commission on Monday suspended three officers in a case pertaining to the alleged changing of answer sheets of a candidate of state Judicial Service Civil Judge (Junior Division) Main (Written) Examination-2022 held in May 2023, reported Hindustan Times.
The three officers have been identified as: section officer Shiv Shankar, review officer Neelam Shukla and assistant review officer Bhagwati Devi. They have been suspended after being found guilty of negligence in investigating the matter, Uttar Pradesh Public Service Commission Secretary Ashok Kumar told the newspaper.
Besides them, action has also been taken against Deputy Secretary Satish Chandra Mishra.
“Permission has also been sought from the state government for action against retired assistant review officer Chandrakala,” Kumar told Hindustan Times.
The discrepancy in the examination came to light after one of the candidates moved the Allahabad High Court alleging that his handwriting, consistent across all other papers, was notably different in the English answer sheet, reported Live Law.
The candidate, Shravan Pandey, had accessed his answer sheet through a Right to Information Act as he was not satisfied with his marks that were declared in November. Besides the discrepancy in the English section, Pandey also alleged that the answers in the Hindi section were scored off in the last three to four pages.
The High Court had then directed the commission to investigate the matter, which revealed that two bundles of 25 copies each had been mixed up, reported Free Press Journal.
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