Will PPSC be able to conduct Naib Tehsildar re-exam fairly this time?

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PPSC keeping its fingers crossed; first time deputes SEMs at each centre for fair conduct of Naib Tehsildar exams -Photo courtesy-Google — Naib Tehsildar Exam

Will PPSC be able to conduct Naib Tehsildar re-exam fairly this time?

Kanwar Inder Singh/ royalpatiala.in News/June 16,2023

Punjab public service commission (PPSC) is going to re conduct the Naib Tehsildar competitive examination on June 18, 2023 (Sunday) at 141 centres from 12:00 noon to 2:00 pm. The examination will be conducted bilingually i.e. both in English and Punjabi language.

The upcoming competitive examination of Naib tehsildar post is a litmus test for the officiating chairperson Dr Jamit Kaur Jeji who was appointed on the said post only on April 10,2023, as the commission’s failure to conduct the previous exam of the said post in a fair manner, led to the re-conduction of the exam.

Will PPSC be able to conduct Naib Tehsildar re-exam fairly this time? During last exam, the police had nabbed a number of accused in the previous competitive exam and had disclosed the modus operandi used by them in that exams which includes the usage of bluetooth and GSM devices for cheating. Patiala police had confirmed cheating in the paper after which the government decided to scrap the merit list of shortlisted candidates and conduct the exam afresh.

As per sources, Punjab Public Service Commission, Patiala might use the Biometric authentication system in the Naib Tehsildar exam to make the examination process robust by implementing Digital Finger-print capturing and Facial recognition of candidate and verifying Candidate’s identity on real-time basis to monitor various activities of the candidates. Also the commission is going to record the Naib Tehsildar exam and is going to depute around 450 videographers with video camera . Theses videographers will do the videography at Patiala, Ludhiana, Mohali, Chandigarh, Fatehgarh Sahib centres.

Meanwhile PPSC chairperson Dr Jamit Kaur Jeji and secretary examination Karamjit Singh could not be contacted despite repeated attempts.

Punjab government had advertised the recruitment of 78 posts of naib-tehsildar in the department of Revenue and Rehabilitation on 17.12.2020. The competitive examination for recruitment to these posts was held on May 22, 2022. Around 1700 appeared for the 78 posts at various examination centers. After that time the list of provisionally shortlisted candidates based on the written test merit was released by the examination conduction agency-Punjab Public Service Commission on September 8,2022. Than the commission asked the candidates to submit their online application forms along with copies of eligibility documents by September 14,2022.

In the first week of October 2022, Congress MLA Sukhpal Singh Khaira alleged a scam in the recruitment of naib tehsildars, claiming that some candidates, who had “failed” in other tests, had topped the exam for the post.

Will PPSC be able to conduct Naib Tehsildar re-exam fairly this time? The incumbent chairperson was a member of the commission at that time. However, the Punjab Public Service Commission in a statement at that time had, said “that they had conducted the recruitment process in a transparent manner and denied the allegation and said there was no evidence to suggest that the recruitment was compromised in any manner. The PPSC said it has very sound internal processes which ensure the conduct of any recruitment process in an objective and transparent manner. The examination for recruitment to the post of naib tehsildar was based on multiple choice questions only and there was no interview as it is a group ‘B’ post. Hence, there was no personal interface with the candidates. “

But, in November 2022, the Patiala police, along with the Counter Intelligence team, claimed to have busted a gang involved in the alleged scam in the Naib Tehsildar recruitment exam, conducted by the Punjab Public Service Commission (PPSC) in May and had arrested five members of the gang — Navraj Choudhary, Gurpreet Singh, Harvinder Singh, Jatinder Singh and Sonu Kumar. As per Patiala police, the candidates who resorted to cheating in clearing the examination were among the toppers in the final list.