SSC CGL 2017: SC permits declaration of results with a clause

New Delhi, May 10: In a big relief to around 1.9 lakh candidates who had taken 227 SSC CGL 2017 test for nearly 9,372 vacancies in central government jobs, the Supreme Court on Thursday allowed Staff Selection Commissions to declare the result and allowed Centre to proceed with the recruitment process.

The exam was conducted between February 17 and February 22 last year but it was marred by leak of question paper which was widely circulated on social media. The government thereafter ordered CBI probe and the Supreme Court in August last year restrained SSC from declaring the result.

A bench of Justices Justice S A Bobde and S Abdul Nazeer vacated its stay and allowed SSC to declare the result but made it clear that any recruitment done by Centre will be subject to final outcome of the case. Advocate Govind Jee appearing for a batch of students agreed with the bench proposal to allow declaration of result.

The CBI in its status report said that the question paper was leaked before scheduled time of exam and candidates used remote access software for solving their question papers by means of outside help from unknown persons. The agency also told that some of the officials of SSC were also involved in leakage of question paper and further probe was needed to track the culprit and also the candidates who benefited by adopting illegal means.

"The candidates in conspiracy with the site supervisor of respective examination centres illegally shared the screen of their PCs with unknown persons for getting undue benefit in solving the question papers for selection in job and the site supervisors in order to obtain wrongful gain allowed the PCs of the candidates remotely accessed by violating guidelines. That in furtherance of the said criminal conspiracy, the unknown officials of SSC who were supposed to supervise and monitor in order to ensure fair and smooth conduct of examination, abused their official position as public servants resulting into above illegal acts," the agency said in its affidavit.

With various competitive examinations for government jobs and admission in educational institutions being marred by leak of question papers and technical glitches in recent years, the bench also appointed a high power committee headed by its former Judge G S Singhvi to suggest measures to make online examination tamper free and whether 2017 SSC exam should be quashed. The court asked the committee, also comprising former Infosys chief Nandan Nilekani and computer scientist Vijay Bhatkar who had developed India's first supercomputer, to submit its report within three months.

SSC question paper leak was not the sole incident in 2018 which also witnessed leak of Economics and Maths question papers of CBSE Board exams which was widely circulated through WhatsApp. The written exam for the recruitment of 9,713 posts of constables in Gujarat was also cancelled barely hours before it was scheduled to commence after authorities learned that the paper had got leaked last year and the online entrance examinations for admission in medical and law colleges were also hit by technical glitches and the court had to intervene. SC had in 2015 quashed the All-India Pre-Medical and Pre-Dental Entrance Test after question paper was leaked.