The Sindh High Court (SHC) on Wednesday directed the provincial advocate general to seek instructions about holding the Sindh Public Service Commission’s (SPSC) examinations in a transparent manner.
The direction came on petitions challenging the written exam results of the Combined Competitive Examination (CCE) 2024 that had cleared only 70 of the 4,340 candidates.
The SPSC’s counsel placed on record copies of the statements showing the standards and requirements of the SPSC’s and the Federal Public Service Commission’s exams.
He also filed a statement about the measures taken by the SPSC to ensure transparency, and copies of the statement showing the profiles of the SPSC members.
An SHC division bench headed by Justice Mohammad Saleem Jessar asked the SPSC’s counsel who sends the names of those who take the SPSC exams. The court asked what the mechanism would be if a third party is appointed to conduct the exams.
The court said the SPSC members may be good bureaucrats and may want to remain in the system but the question arises what they are delivering. The court directed the AG to seek instructions about holding the SPSC exams in a transparent manner in the next hearing.
The successful candidates of the SPSC’s written exams also questioned the maintainability of the petition, saying that the petitioners being unsuccessful candidates cannot be allowed to unsettle the entire process of the SPSC exam on the basis of vague and unsubstantiated allegations.
They said they are successful candidates who had cleared the written test strictly on merit, so they have legitimate expectations of being allowed to participate in the interview process.
The court continued its interim stay order, under which it had suspended the impugned press release regarding the publication of the names of the 70 successful candidates, with no further process to be taken until further court orders.
The SPSC had earlier defended its written exam results of CCE 2024, saying that it had emerged from a notified, transparently conducted, statutorily prescribed and rigorously administered exam process.
The SPSC said that only 70 candidates qualified by securing not less than 33 percent marks in each individual paper and not less than 50 percent marks on the aggregate.
The SPSC said that the remaining 4,270 candidates, including the petitioners, did not meet the statutory threshold. It also questioned the petition’s maintainability, as a complete, time-bound and statutorily prescribed remedy by way of representation, followed by appeal, is provided to every aggrieved candidate under the SPSC regulations.
The SPSC said that any order against the written exams would directly and adversely affect each of the 70 individuals who had been declared successful in the exams. It said that the entire relevant record of CCE 2024 had been sealed in compliance with the court’s order.
The petitioners claimed that they had secured the highest marks in the screening test, but the SPSC, under extraneous considerations, declared only its blue-eyed boys successful.
They said if the process on the basis of written exam is allowed to continue, the petitioners would suffer irreparable loss and be deprived of justice, as they had been declared unsuccessful without any lawful justification.
