Bangalore, Sept 20, 2013: Giving a new twist to the Karnataka Public Service Commission (KPSC) scam, the High Court on Friday constituted a fact-finding committee, comprising all parties involved, to dig out the irregularities in the recruitment of gazetted probationers in 1998, 1999 and 2004.
Hearing a petition by Khaleel Ahmed, V Raghu, H S Suresh Kumar and others for implementation of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) report on irregularities in the recruitment, a Division Bench of Chief Justice D H Waghela and Justice B V Nagarathna ordered the formation of the committee which would consist of petitioners, the selected candidates and respective advocates. The committee has to submit a report in a month after scrutinising the KPSC documents.
Government counsel R Devdas, petitioners’ counsels, Vikram Phadke and Basavaraj Patil, KPSC’s counsel, Ruben Jacob, and selected candidates’ counsel, K M Prakash, will be in the committee. Some petitioners and selected candidates will also be on board.
The court said the committee would look into three areas: evaluation of marks, scaling and moderation of marks obtained by the candidates in written main exams and evaluation of marks in the personality test.
The developments following High Court directions dated October 11, 2002 and July 4, 2003 would also be looked into, it added.
A proper inquiry would be held with representatives of both parties and the KPSC will make available for scrutiny all the materials it has. Accepting the submission of senior counsel S P Rajagopal, who appeared for the KPSC, the bench directed the commission to provide adequate facilities to members of the committee.
Accordingly, the members will hold a meeting on an agreed date for collection of data and submit a joint memo, analysis of data, conclusion and the summary. It has been agreed that members can take assistance of persons of their choice in collection and analysis of data. The committee members can receive data from KPSC either as hard copies or in the form of CDs.
Hoping that the committee would reach a consensus, the court warned the members against making any individual allegation in public, directly or indirectly.
It also directed the KPSC to record members’ attendance and dates of meeting. The matter would be heard again in November.
Earlier during the hearing, the KPSC counsel submitted all the scaling and moderation list and that of persons who appeared for personality test, their marks and other details the court had sought in an earlier hearing.
