Recruitment of assistant professors: After HC stay on hiring, Punjab orders inquiry into ‘paper leak’

Minister of higher education Pargat Singh has directed principal secretary Krishan Kumar to carry a minute inquiry into the complaints received from applicants of the recruitment process

After the Punjab and Haryana high court recently put a stay on the recruitment of 1,091 assistant professors in Punjab government colleges till December 13, the state government has also ordered an inquiry into allegations of paper leak.

Punjabi University, Patiala, and Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar, were assigned the task to set paper for humanities and science subjects, respectively, for the recruitment exams. (HT Photo)

Minister of higher education Pargat Singh has directed principal secretary Krishan Kumar to carry a minute inquiry into the complaints received from applicants.

The process to recruit assistant professors, being carried out after 19 years, hit a legal roadblock after applicants moved the high court.

The civil writ petition alleged that the question papers of Punjabi and mathematics were leaked well before the exams were conducted from November 20 to 22.

Punjabi University, Patiala, and Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar, were assigned the task to set paper for humanities and science subjects, respectively. The examination centres were also set up in both these universities. The result of examinations was declared on November 28.

The petitioners alleged that “research scholars and students of professors who set the examination papers were favoured and they cleared the entrance test”.

Pargat said he had called the advocate general on Tuesday to discuss the legal matters pertaining to the case.

“We have already stalled the recruitment process for Punjabi subject for which the department received complaints of paper leak. For other subjects, the legal team will put forward its case in court,” he said.

The minister added that the inquiry had been ordered to ensure that the examination was conducted in a fair manner.

“The principal secretary has been asked to submit the report at the earliest. If found guilty, the defaulters will face stringent action,” he said.

‘No question of paper leak’

Meanwhile, in its statement, Punjabi university ruled out any discrepancy in holding the said examination.

Dr Gurpreet Singh Lehal, the coordinator for the Punjabi exam, said a highly confidential process was followed for setting the question paper.

“A panel of nine experts from five universities from Punjab and other states was formed to create a database of 600 questions. Each expert independently created their set of questions and no expert was aware of the other eight’s questions. The task of creating the final question paper was accomplished by randomly selecting 100 questions from the question bank through a computer program,” he said.

He added that there was no question of leakage of the questions by the subject experts, as no one knew the final questions selected by the computer program.

On Saturday, Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) president Sukhbir Singh Badal had demanded an immediate inquiry in the alleged multi-crore assistant professor recruitment scam, claiming that not only were all the rules and procedures set aside to recruit the chosen ones after leakage of exam papers, but crores also changed hands.