Outrage in Gujarat as clerk recruitment exam gets postponed again due to paper leak
2 min read . Updated: 29 Jan 2023, 12:05 PM IST
PremiumThe Gujarat Panchayat Junior Clerk recruitment exam was scheduled for January 29 at 11 am.
Following the discovery of a paper leak case, the Panchayat Junior Clerk recruitment exam, planned for January 29 at 11 am, has been postponed. The board will soon announce the date for the exam's retake, which will be conducted as soon as possible.
While over 7,00,000 persons were anticipated to take the exam throughout the state, just 26,882 pupils from Jamnagar had registered for it. However, the Chief Minister's Office was informed that over 9.50 lakh candidates had registered for the exam and that GSRTC had offered free return transportation to applicants.
A suspect was detained after a copy of the exam's question paper was discovered on him, as per the Gujarat Panchayat Service Selection Board, Gandhinagar, while police are taking criminal action and conducting additional research.
"In the larger interest of the candidates, it has been decided by the board to 'postpone' the competitive examination to be held on 29-01-2023 at 11-00 am, which all the candidates are requested to take note of. Every candidate is advised not to go to the examination centre for the above reasons. The sadar exam will be held afresh at the earliest, the date of which will be announced by the board shortly," the board added.
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Arriving at the exam site in Jamnagar, students and their parents expressed anger and disappointment and demanded that the government take decisive action against those involved.
The board advised the candidates not to visit the testing locations and apologised for the trouble it had caused. "The examination will be conducted afresh at the earliest, for which the board will issue a new advertisement," it said.
Manish Doshi, a spokesperson for the Gujarat Congress, asserted that this was the 15th government competitive exam to be postponed in the previous 12 years due to a question paper leak.
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Although the administration says it is taking rigorous action, the key offenders have not even been detained, according to Doshi. The state's youth are being used as pawns by the administration, he alleged. Doshi alleged that the exam, for which the first advertisement was published in 2016, had been postponed three times.
Isudan Gadhvi, the leader of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in Gujarat, used Twitter to criticise the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) administration in the state over the paper leak issue. Gujarat had a history of question paper leaks from competitive exams, which caused massive agitation among the state's youth. In the lead-up to the state Assembly elections held in December, the BJP government encountered vehement resistance from the Congress and the AAP on the matter.
Arvind Kejriwal, the national coordinator of the AAP, even made a commitment to introduce tough legislation against exam paper leaks that included a ten-year prison sentence.
(With agency inputs)
