Water canon used to disperse protesting civil service aspirants in Itanagar

Itanagar: Police on Saturday used water canon to disperse over hundred aspirants of Arunachal Pradesh Public Service Commission Combined Exam (APPSCCE) who protested outside a private school here, where the mains examination of Arunachal Pradesh Public Service Commission (APPSC) was going on.

Over hundreds of candidates protested outside the school demanding postponement of the mains examination citing ongoing court cases.

However, 900 out of total 1336 candidates appeared in the first day of the mains exam, APPSC secretary Taru Talo informed.

The Commission on Friday night notified that it would conduct the mains exam according to schedule from November 10 to 20 next after the Itanagar permanent bench of the Gauhati High Court vacated the stay order of November 8 during the day.

The Court in its order opined that, at this juncture, when all the qualified candidates across the state have been issued admit cards and the exam schedule provided, any further order affecting the holding of the examination "may turn to serious consequences." However, the result of the examination will be kept in a sealed cover and will be subject to the final outcome of the writ petition filed by the aggrieved candidates, which is currently sub-judice before the court.

With this, the appeal for postponement of the APPSCCE (Mains) 2018 submitted by one half of the mains qualified candidates, and the representation for holding the mains exam as per the notified schedule, submitted by the other half, have been disposed off, the court stated in its order.

The Court has fixed the next joint hearing for November 14 next.

The candidates resolved to boycott the examination altogether, saying that there is no clear-cut judgment on the matter and they are not in a mental state to sit for the examination, owing to the ongoing fiasco.

They have demanded that the mains examination should be held only after the final verdict of the high court is out, and accordingly sought postponement till then. However, the APPSC in its notification has advised the candidates "not to take such steps of obstruction and disturbances of peaceful conduct of examination which may entail them to be debarred from future examinations conducted by the APPSC as per the Commission's Conduct of Examination Rules and as may be decided by it."

The fiasco began in November last year, when the APPSC held the APPSCCE preliminary examination. Candidates were surprised by strange questions, and later found that the questions had been lifted directly from the Pakistan civil services examinations, the 2008 UPSC examination and an online sociology discussion forum.