New Delhi:

The Supreme Court on Tuesday refused to examine a plea over the alleged irregularities in the BPSC exam held on December 13, 2024, and the consequent police action on protestors.

A bench comprising Chief Justice Sanjiv Khanna and Justices Sanjay Kumar and K V Viswanathan asked petitioner to move the Patna High Court with the grievances.

The counsel appearing for petitioner, Anand Legal Aid Forum Trust, urged the bench to consider the plea, saying the country witnessed Bihar police’s brutally on peaceful protesters who sought cancellation of the contentious Bihar Public Service Commission (BPSC) exam.

“We are asking you to go to the Patna High Court,” the CJI said.

The counsel, however, said, “This paper leak is happening as a daily matter.” “We understand your sentiments attached…but we cannot be the court of first instance,” the CJI said, “and we feel it will be appropriate and more expeditious that the petitioner approached the Patna High Court under Article 226 of the Constitution.” The lawyer informed the bench the place where police led a charge with batons on protestors was near the Patna High Court chief justice’s official residence and a suo-motu note could have been taken.

Bihar police allegedly used force to control civil service aspirants who demanded the cancellation of the BPSC examination held on December 13, 2024.

The state public service commission ordered a re-exam held on January 4 at 22 centers in Patna for certain candidates.

Of the 12,012 candidates eligible for the retest, a total of 8,111 downloaded their admit cards, and 5,943 appeared for the examination.

Jan Suraaj founder Prashant Kishor, who was on an indefinite fast in Patna’s Gandhi Maidan, raising the same demand was arrested and later released on bail. He was moved to the ICU of Medanta Hospital in the city on Tuesday over health complications.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Members of various left organisations stage a protest demanding re-examination of 70th BPSC prelims exam and against the alleged police lathicharge on BPSC aspirants during an agitation, in Patna, Wednesday, Jan. 1, 2025.
| Photo Credit: PTI

Even as the protest in Patna by aspirants seeking cancellation of the 70^th Bihar Public Service Commission (BPSC) Combined (Preliminary) Competitive Examination over an alleged paper leak continued on Wednesday (January 1, 2025), a section of those who took the exam contends that there should be no retest as that would be a “gross injustice to the majority of candidates”.

‘No evidence of leak’

In the 70^th BPSC Preliminary Test, while 3.28 lakh candidates had appeared at 912 centres across the State for the exam on December 13, at one centre, Bapu Pariksha Parisar in Patna, some students alleged there was a delay in getting question papers and it was leaked. The students came out of the centre and started protesting, but were dispersed by the district administration. While there was no protest by the aspirants for the next five days, the BPSC announced a retest at Bapu Pariksha Parisar on January 4.

However, the students started protesting for a re-examination of the BPSC PT for all from December 19 by organizing sit-ins at Patna’s Gardanibagh area. They were later, brutally baton charged, sprayed water through canons and politicians like Tejashwi Yadav of Rashtriya Janata Dal, Prashant Kishor of Jan Suraaj Party, Independent MP from Purnea Rajesh Ranjan alias Pappu Yadav allegedly jumped into the protest to express their solidarity with the aspirants.

The mounting protests have made other candidates who do not want a re-examination fear that their voices will get drowned out. They claim that the exam was conducted in a very “peaceful, proper and decent manner” at their centres and there was “no evidence” of any paper leak.

‘Students instigated’

“Some vested interest coaching mafias instigated some students by feeding cooked up stories into their minds. They fell prey to their sinister design. The whole protest is on unfounded grounds”, a BPSC aspirant from whose exam center was at Dehri-on-Sone in Rohtas district Nayan Kumar Jha told The Hindu over phone. Mr Jha, earlier, had cleared BPSC PT test twice and once he has appeared in the interview too but unfortunately couldn’t qualify the exam. “The exam was conducted peacefully at all centers baring one in Patna for which re-test was already announced. Initially, the students were not agitated but a few young men in their pursuit to become leaders, orchestrated the episode”, he added asserting, “there was no evidence that the question paper was leaked”. Mr Jha also decried several points raised by protesting aspirants for cancelling the test.

Another aspirant Tarique Asad Rizwee whose exam centre was at Katihar wondered how just over one per cent of aspirants could “agitate and demand a re-examination of the test” on behalf of 99% of students who do not want it as there was no evidence of any paper leak and the test was conducted by the Commission in a “very methodical and proper way”. Mr Rizwee is an IITian who graduated in mechanical engineering and claimed that he had “no problem at all” in appearing for the 70^th BPSC test exam. “Those who are protesting for the retest are ignorant and their demand will be gross injustice with us, about 99% of the examinee who do not want it”, he asserted. Tarique has also been one among thousands of examinees who have sent emails to the BPSC chairman demanding not to conduct any “retest” of the exam.

Iqra who goes by a single name, was also an aspirant of the BPSC-PT whose exam centre was at Saharsa Zila School and she also said the exam was held in a “proper manner and there was no discrepancy at all during the exam process”. “We do not demand any retest…why should others suffer because just a handful of aspirants demanding its retest?”, she asked over the phone. Iqra had appeared in BPSC PT for the second time and she has graduated from Bhagalpur. She added, that the agitation by a few aspirants has seemingly been “high jacked” by a few coaching institute mafias and some politicians for their own political purposes and not for the students’ welfare.