Himachal: Candidates protest over pending results of HPSSC exams

SHIMLA: Several job aspirants Monday staged a protest in front of the secretariat here demanding the result declaration of the exams conducted by the now-disbanded state staff selection commission at the earliest. The state government, on February 21, dissolved the Himachal Pradesh Staff Selection Commission (HPSSC) located in Hamirpur, after the paper leak scam for recruitment of junior office assistants (IT) was unearthed on December 23 last year.

The examinations for several posts slated to be conducted by HPSSC could not be held as the commission was dissolved and results of several exams held earlier are yet to be declared as the vigilance bureau is investigating examinations held in the past three years. During Monday's protest, the candidates demanded immediate declaration of the pending results of the exams held by the HPSSC.

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The protestors urged that even if the vigilance department is probing the process of examination, the results should be announced and the selected candidates be given conditional joining so that anybody who is found guilty of indulging in malpractice for getting the job could be terminated later. Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu, on several occasions, had said his government was making all-out efforts to declare the pending results of the HPSSC exams.

Terming the chief minister's assurances for result declaration "a bundle of lies", the protestors said they had prepared for government jobs for years but now were forced to wait for results and feared that they would not be able to fulfil the age criteria for the jobs if they were asked to retake the exams. They added that they would continue to sit on dharna till the results are declared. So far, leaks have been detected in about 30 examinations conducted by the HPSSC in the past. The vigilance department is probing irregularities in 22 examinations.