UPPCS (J) 2022 exam irregularities: Allahabad HC appoints ex-CJ to lead probe panel

The bench comprising Justice Saumitra Dayal Singh and Justice Donadi Ramesh has asked the commission to file a report by May 31, 2025,

The Allahabad high court has appointed former Chief Justice Govind Mathur to lead an independent commission to probe the alleged irregularities in the UPPCS J (Mains) 2022 examination.

The court directed to list the case in the first week of July next year. (For Representation)

The bench comprising Justice Saumitra Dayal Singh and Justice Donadi Ramesh has asked the commission to file a report by May 31, 2025, while making the suggestions on ways and means to make the evaluation process of UPPCS (J) examination more responsive to the needs of the selection and more trustworthy for all stakeholders, including the UPPSC.

The division bench passed the order on December 20, 2024, in a petition filed by Shravan Pandey who had alleged that his English answer sheet had been tampered with. In his plea, he had also alleged that the handwriting in his answer sheet did not match with his own.

In July 2024, the Uttar Pradesh Public Service Commission (UPPSC) admitted to an error in preparing the merit list for the written examination of 50 PCS-J (provincial civil services-judicial) 2022 candidates.

The court also stressed the reformation of the process of evaluation of answer booklets and that declaration of results needed to be reformed to make it more responsive and credible both in the eyes of the court as also the society in general.

The court pointed out that inter-change of the checklist of master fake code was an impermissible blunder and the model answer key did not provide for scale of marks to be adhered to by all examiners as may have helped enforce a uniform scale of marking by considering the level/extent of correctness or error of individual answer responses and quality of evaluation process and the evaluation made were not of desired quality.

“Too many corrections were made by the Examiners, some of them after scoring out the marks originally written and others by over-writing. Not all such corrections have been counter signed by the Examiners in the margin against the answer responses”, the bench said.

Accordingly, the court requested Justice Govind Mathur, former Chief Justice, Allahabad high court, to accept the commission. The court directed to list the case in the first week of July next year.