Kochi: The Kerala High Court on Wednesday sought more clarity into the Kerala Administrative Service (KAS) selection process while addressing a plea alleging irregularities in the selection process of the examination.
The HC directed the state government and the Kerala Public Service Commission to file statements in the plea.
In their plea, some people, who appeared for the preliminary examination for appointment to the Kerala Administrative Service, alleged that manual valuation of 18,000 answer sheets by employees of Kerala Public Service Commission resulted in favoritism, nepotism and political patronage in the selection conducted to the highest civil post under the Government of Kerala Services.
They alleged that the time period granted for revaluation and obtaining copy of answer sheets was drastically reduced from 45 days to 15 days so as to eliminate and exclude meritorious candidates from approaching the Kerala Public Service Commission for revaluation and obtaining photocopy of the answer sheets.
Questions were copied from guides issued by private institutions and mistakes in the guide are verbatim reproduction in the high profile examination like Kerala Administrative Service, they alleged in the petition.
The petitioners submitted that such grave irregularities is an exceptional and rare circumstance which needs the intervention of the High Court for a direction of a high level independent and impartial inquiry.
Considering the plea, Justice V G Arun directed the Public Service Commission and the state government to file statements within three weeks.