More shocking instances of compromised all-India competitive examinations are now appearing in public, with a group of 23 candidates approaching Delhi High Court seeking cancellation of the “Examiner for Patents and Designs” exam of 2023, held to fill 553 ‘Group A’ gazetted officer posts under the Union Ministry of Commerce.

The Delhi High Court’s vacation bench of Justice Ravinder Dudeja will hear on Friday the recruitment irregularities matter flagged in the petition filed by candidate Parikshit Grewal and 22 others. The Delhi High Court had earlier issued a notice to the government when the petition first came for hearing on June 12, alleging grave scandalous aberrations in the process of recruitment conducted by the National Testing Agency, which is under the scanner for organising other competitive tests as well, such as the NEET.

These Group A officers work under the Office of Controller General of Patents, Designs, and Trade Marks (CGPDTM), known as the Indian Patent Office. The agency is under the Ministry of Commerce’s Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT).

The advocate for the petitioners, Dinesh Chandra Tripathi, confirmed to businessline that the case is coming up on Friday before the Delhi High Court. “We have sought cancellation and re-examination for the post of Examiner for Patents and Designs owing to various serious irregularities we have pointed out in the petition. Most glaring is the marking criterion,” Tripathi said.

Petition Details

According to the petition, alleged discrepancies in the marking scheme were accepted but not fixed by the NTA. They accepted that there was an error in the marking scheme of the questions displayed on the computer screen in the Phase II mains exam but said that “examination delivery agency” was informed to make candidates aware of it, the petitioners stressed.

They contradicted that stand of the NTA and stated that none of the candidates were apprised about this “ambiguity/error” at any examination centres. If that was the case, why did NTA not correct/fix the error in the marking scheme of the re-conducted Phase II mains examination?, the petition argued.

The petition also pointed out that Rajiv Gaurav, a candidate, filed a written complaint with the Exam Controller, DPIIT, NTA Office, Okhla, Delhi, on April 22, informing them that he got a call on March 24 from Noida centre exam coordinator, Abhishek, asking him to come to the centre two days later as they “need some clarification about the main exam.”

Gaurav, who gave his roll number as UP09002241 in the complaint, said he had already appeared for the mains exam for the first time on January 25 at the C30/&A, Sector 62, Noida, centre. But, on reaching the exam centre on March 26, Gaurav said he was told that his “main paper is missing” and that “you need to write your exam once again today.” As per his complaint, he was told that if he fails to rewrite the exam, he will be treated as absent.

“Due to nervousness about the exam result, I agreed to write the mains exam,” Gaurav accepted in his complaint. Interestingly, he was given the “same question paper” to rewrite the exam.

Second exam

The twist in the process did not end there. On March 27, the mains results were declared, and it showed “result later” against the score cards of 239 candidates, including Gaurav, the complaint said. At the time of filing the complaint, Gaurav said his mains result was kept in abeyance. Later, he was called for the interview, and I have heard that he is among the candidates selected, advocate Tripathi informed.

The petitioners have also charged that “the mains examination was held for a second time, covertly, without public notice” for 1037 candidates, giving undue benefit/advantage to a few and completely rendering the entire process of the examination inherently unfair, opaque, arbitrary, and an unfettered exercise of power.” Overall, 10,474 candidates had qualified for the mains paper, as per the NTA data, according to the petition.

After candidates gave representations through emails and physically to the NTA, a public notice was issued on February 6, 2024. IT agreed to reconduct the exam. However, the mains re-examination had already happened a day before, on February 5, as the petition highlighted. The preliminary exam was on December 21, 2023.

Evaluation Process

Another contradiction flagged is that the NTA emailed individual candidates who could not appear in the mains exam on January 25, with the subject “Conduct of the Mains examination (Paper I and Paper II), i.e., Phase II of the Post of Examiner of Patents and Design for Left-Out/ Absent Candidates.” On the other hand, the petition stated that the candidates were to be “eligible to appear only in the shift(s) that was missed by them” and no one was to be given a “second chance to re-appear in any examination.”

The petition also raised questions over the evaluation process, calling it non-transparent since the combined results after both main exams were over showed some candidates score cards as “qualified for interview” and some others as “not qualified for interview. And there was a third category of “result later” for 239 candidates.

The NTA conducted the interview on April 1, 2024. The petition charged that some of the 239 candidates got personal telephone calls and not formal written communication to download their interview call letters, hinting at the alleged fishy way of conducting the all-India competitive examination.