Rescheduled Odisha constable test also marred by bungling charge

Odisha Sun Times Bureau
Kendrapara, Apr 16:

A fresh controversy has put a serious question mark over the Odisha police civil constables’ recruitment test held at 31 centres across the state on April 5.

The constables’ recruitment written test, it may be noted, was rescheduled to April 5 following question paper leak on the eve of the examination originally scheduled on March 15.

But even the revised examination has been dogged by allegations of irregularities and the Odisha Police State Council Board (OPSCB) has come under severe criticism once again after the alleged publication of results in Kendrapara.

On Tuesday afternoon, a list of successful candidates was put up in the Kendrapara SP office. Several aspirants queued up at the office looking for their names in the list. However, the list was replaced by a new one within less than 24 hours of publication of the first.

The revised list was more or less the same as the old one, but with one significant change. The names of three candidates were missing from the list that was published on Wednesday.

Shaktikanta Nayak of Narada village (Sl No. 17), Parameshwar Nayak of Jeypore (Sl No. 19) and Manas Ranjan Das of Ghantalo village (Sl No. 21) were ecstatic after they found their names in the list of successful candidates on Tuesday. Their happiness knew no bounds and the festivity grew manifold as it coincided with Maha Bisubha Sankranti and Pana Sankranti which marks the Odia New Year.

Their happiness, however, was short-lived after they came to know that a new list had been published a day after.

Their names were replaced by Sanoj Kumar Nayak of Mahanpur (Sl No. 17), Dibya Ranjan Sahoo of Ghanashyampur (Sl No. 19) and Bharadwaj Nayak of Chatarapatana (Sl No. 21) on Wednesday.

Smelling a rat in the publication of results, the infuriated candidates staged a protest outside the SP office here and threatened to move court if the previous list was not restored.

Kendrapara SP Satish Gajbhiye, however, has denied any wrong-doing. “The recruitment has been done in a transparent manner as per the rules and regulations. The candidates have been short-listed as per their merits,” he said.

A list of successful candidates having the signature of officials of a five-member team comprising SP, CDMO, DSWO and two other senior police personnel was put up in the SP office premises yesterday.

But the SP stressed that he had no inkling of the list that was published on Tuesday afternoon.

“Some unscrupulous elements might have done a mischief by putting up the rough list before the computer generated final list was displayed. The list published on Wednesday is error-free and clean,” Gajbhiye claimed.

It may be mentioned that the SP had personally supervised the recruitment test for the civil constables at Kendrapara College to ensure free and fair conduct of the examination.

Out of the 1370 vacant posts in the state, 68 civil constables will be appointed in Kendrapara district.