SSC CGL 2017 exam valid: What the Supreme Court said

New Delhi, Mar 10: The SSC CGL 2017 exam will not be scrapped. The exam it may be recalled was conducted by the Staff Selection Commission.

While hearing a petition, the Supreme Court said that the SSC CGL 2017 exam will not be scrapped.

The observation was made while hearing petitions relating to the leak of the question paper.

The court had observed that the committee had duly considered the various aspects before recording the above conclusion. We are therefore not in a position to accept the objections, the Bench had held.

The SSC is a government body which conducts examinations to recruit staff at multiple levels in various ministries and departments.

The court is hearing a plea which has sought probe into alleged paper leak of 2017 SSC Combined Graduate Level (CGL) exam and scrapping of the paper which was purportedly leaked.

The court on April 1 had allowed SSC to declare result of a re-examination of 2017 SSC CGL held last year.

It had also set up a high powered committee comprising Nandan Nilekani, a co-founder of tech giant Infosys, and renowned computer scientist Vijay P Bhatkar to suggest reforms for conducting of competitive examinations fairly by the government bodies.

The examination papers of the SSC CGL 2017 were allegedly leaked, leading to huge protests from job seekers for several days.

Amid the protests, the SSC had recommended a CBI probe into the allegations of paper leak.

On August 31 last year, the court had stayed the declaration of result of SSC CGL and combined higher secondary level examination, in which lakhs of students had appeared, saying it seemed that the entire test and system was "tainted".

The apex court had then favoured cancelling the 2017 SSC examination, and holding it afresh by National Testing Agency or the CBSE "in the interest of students".

However, the Centre had said there was no need for re-examination of entire paper as the leak was "extremely localised" and those behind the leaks were identified and action was taken.

Several lakh students appear in SSC examination each year and enter government services in Group C and D Categories of jobs once they qualify.

The SSC Combined Graduate Level exam has a four-tier system, in which tier I and tier II are computer-based, while in tier III and IV, job applicants take up a descriptive paper and a computer proficiency test or skill test.