Punjab News ‘HC must conduct PCS interviews’

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Prime VIP
Chandigarh, June 19

City-based advocate HC Arora has called upon Chief Secretary, Punjab, to hand over the process of conducting the interviews for the PCS (Executive) to the Punjab and Haryana High Court.

In his letter addressed to SC Agrawal, Arora stated that after the Ravi Sidhu saga, the PPSC had been passing through yet another critical period.

“The Vigilance Bureau is conducting investigation into the selection of 312 medical officers by the PPSC, following an indictment of the selections by the Chief Secretary,” he said, adding that the Chief Secretary’s inquiry report had detected the assignment of very high marks to some of the selected candidates and rejection of a large number of meritorious candidates by giving them very low marks in the interview.

“The motives of the PPSC members for their abnormal conduct are yet to be dug out by the Vigilance Bureau,” he wrote.

Arora stated that the PPSC members have been placed in a situation where they had to make selections to the PCS (E), while they themselves have been under thick cloud over their integrity. “The confidence of the public in fairness of the ongoing selection process is bound to be shaken in the prevailing situation,” he wrote.

Arora has suggested to the Chief Secretary that in this situation, “it will only be fair if the state government brings forth a notification for amending the relevant provisions of the Punjab State Civil Services Rules 2009, for handing over the interviews of the selection process for the PCS (E) to the Punjab and Haryana High Court.

“The PCS officers on executive side discharge a lot of quasi-judicial and judicial functions and the fairness of the selection process for the PCS officers requires that the judges of the High Court should monitor the interviews for their selection”.
 
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