2 tests with striking similarities leave candidates baffled in Hry

Aspirants cry foul, say merit will get compromised

CHANDIGARH: A number of aspirants who appeared for the January 27 written examination conducted by the Haryana Public Service Commission (HPSC) for recruitment to 524 posts of assistant professors for public administration (college cadre) in Haryana higher education department were in for a shock.

The reason: Nearly one-third questions in the HPSC exam were identical to those asked in the PhD entrance test for public administration subject conducted by Kurukshetra University 10 days back. Both the tests had multiple-choice questions. The PhD test had 50 questions, while the HPSC exam had 100.

Candidates alleged that since these questions were in the public domain, it gave undue advantage to those who had access to the PhD entrance exam question paper. When asked, HPSC secretary J Ganesan said that they would look into the matter.

“This is just one paper (PhD exam) which is accessible to us. But, it is quite possible that many questions were also lifted from other question papers. This gives undue advantage to the examinees who have already gone through the question paper. It leaves tremendous scope for leakage of paper. Such high amount of unprofessional conduct is not expected from a recruitment agency,” said a Panjab University student, who sought to remain anonymous.

A PhD student from Rajasthan University, Rajesh Kumawat, said such duplication was detrimental to the interest of candidates who comprehensively prepared for the exam. “In such cases, merit gets compromised,” he added. Sandeep Singh, a PhD student from Panjab University, said, “We have seen instances where question papers of HPSC exams were a mere copy-and-paste job. This kind of conduct undercuts the credibility of the commission. It would be very easy to leak such information, especially for coaching institutes. A candidate for the assistant professor exam having the slightest idea of duplication will be at a great advantage.”

Another PU student Anil Saharan said answers to many questions in the HPSC exam were wrong. “We have given a representation to the commission in this regard after going through the answer key. The manner in which this question paper for a Class-1 job was set by the paper setters of the commission is really shocking. Even the arrangement of options was same. It was a duplication of worst kind,” Saharan rued.

Similar grouse was raised by an aspirant, who did not wish to be named. “In 2019, candidates appearing for the posts of English assistant professors were shocked to find that questions were lifted from the UGC NET exam held in 2012 and 2013 for the same subject,” he said.