PMC defends JE exam; politicians allege recruitment process compromised

PMC has defended its junior engineer recruitment exam, saying its probe found no evidence of question paper leak, even as FIR was registered against three candidates, two exam centre staff

Pune: The Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) has defended its junior engineer (civil), class 3 recruitment examination, saying its probe found no evidence of a pre-exam question paper leak, even as an FIR was registered against three candidates and two examination-centre employees for alleged malpractice.

PMC has defended its junior engineer recruitment exam, saying its probe found no evidence of question paper leak, even as FIR was registered against three candidates, two exam centre staff. ((PIC FOR REPRESENTATION))

The civic body said the review, conducted with Institute of Banking Personnel Selection (IBPS) and supported by TCS and Ernst & Young, found the irregularity was limited to three candidates, whose candidature has been cancelled. The two venue employees allegedly involved have been removed from deployment.

The controversy began after an image purportedly showing a question and its answer options from the online examination was circulated on X on June 19. PMC referred the matter to IBPS and ordered an integrity review.

The recruitment had received 41,272 applications. The exam was conducted by IBPS in seven sessions over three days — April 22, 23 and 29 — at TCS-iON centres in Pune, Mumbai, Nagpur, Amravati, Nanded, Kolhapur and Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar. Results were declared in June.

IBPS examined data logs of 545 candidates called for document verification and compared them with the response patterns of 4,135 candidates who appeared in the relevant session.

Three candidates were flagged. According to PMC, their logs showed that they scanned questions without answering them during the first 30 minutes and then answered questions rapidly in bursts. Each such spike was preceded by a washroom visit. CCTV footage independently corroborated the findings, the civic body said.

PMC said the circulated image was captured from a computer screen during the examination, rather than before it. Since questions and answer options were separately shuffled for each candidate, the image could be traced to a particular candidate and terminal, it said.

However, the decision to proceed with appointments has drawn criticism from NCP (SP) MP Supriya Sule and MLA Rohit Pawar.

Sule called for the recruitment to be cancelled and conducted afresh, saying the findings raised questions about the extent of the irregularities. Pawar also questioned the decision to issue appointment orders while candidates’ concerns remained unresolved and said he would join a protest if appointments proceeded without addressing their doubts.

Naval Kishor Ram, Pune municipal commissioner, said, “In any examination, there are a few candidates who try to cheat. This case involved three candidates. We have thoroughly investigated it and it is not a case of paper leakage.”

Appointment orders are being issued to 146 candidates, while five have been withheld, including those of the two candidates found to have committed malpractice. Eighteen posts remain vacant due to a lack of eligible candidates or pending requirements.