High court refuses to strike down 'tainted' KPSC lists

The Karnataka High Court on Tuesday refused to strike down the selection list of Gazetted Probationers (Group A and B) for the years 1998, 1999 and 2004.

The court, however, directed the Karnataka Public Service Commission (KPSC) to “sieve” the tainted and ineligible candidates.

The court asked KPSC to prepare a separate list of eligible candidates for these years in the ratio 1:5, equal to the post reserved under the respective categories, to conduct the personality test within two months from the date of the order.

In a packed court hall, a division bench comprising Justice N Kumar and Justice B Veerappa pronounced 35 pages of the 517-page order to a batch of PILs filed in 2012.
The court observed: “A classic case of white-collared, educated, highly-placed men holding responsible posts in the administration, betraying the confidence reposed in them by the public of Karnataka. Behind the scene, how fraud, illegality, irregularity, deceit is practised to manipulate the results of the examination and some of the selected candidates even before they are born in the cadre are suffering from the vice of corruption, nepotism, casteism (sic).”

The revision of list is likely to have repercussions on beneficiaries of the scam. The court said that appointments of those who fail to make it to the revised list will be set aside. 

The procedure followed by KPSC in preparing the list of candidates was “unconstitutional, contrary to the Rules and the Government orders, however, on that ground, the entire selections for the said years’ batch selection cannot be set aside (sic),” the bench added.