Daily Times

PESHAWAR: Arshad Saeed, a lawyer by profession, has blamed the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Public Service Commission (KP-PSC) for several mistakes in the process of marking the papers and asked the Chairman of the Public Service Commission and the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court to take out his papers for cross checking.

Addressing a press conference here at the Peshawar press club, Arshad Saeed, who is the topper of his department in legal studies, said that the PSC had conducted the examination for civil judges cum judicial magistrates a few months ago to fill a total of 125 vacant seats out of which 104 candidates were declared successful.

He said that he was declared failed in his written portion of examination with a margin of two marks for getting an aggregate of 425 marks out of 850.

However, after hectic efforts of one month and exchanging harsh words with the administration, he was awarded two marks to cover the aggregate without checking his papers. He said that the commission had also warned him of consequences if he ever highlighted the Public Service Commission’s mistakes to anyone.

He added that he had no trust in the paper checking mechanism of the commission and the commission should open his papers in front of judicial officers for re-appropriating and re-checking his marks. He said that despite committing mistakes, the commission had tried to save its image and that is why he was threatened not to inform any one for getting additional marks to cross the aggregate.

He also blamed the PSC of taking most of the candidates from zone (II) as 34 candidates have been appointed from only zone II and the rest of the vacancies have been divided on zone I, III, IV, V. He said that a similar division was also made in the previous appointment of public prosecutors.

He also suggested the provincial and federal governments to oblige the commission for keeping the video and audio records of the interviews and examination written papers.

He mentioned that no one could challenge the interview of the commission and some students were being asked very tough questions regarding multiple disciplines while some applicants were being asked questions pertaining only to Bollywood movies.

He said that one of the appointed applicants was asked about an Indian popular couple movie, its lyrics of the songs and the story and was thus appointed as a civil judge cum judicial magistrate. He questioned why one could not challenge the interview and as there will be only the monopoly of those who like western and Indian cultures for Pakistani students.

He appealed to the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court to specify a criterion for the commission interview and written exams and force them to arrange on camera interviews in order to satisfy the candidates regarding their answers and discipline. He also suggested that the students should be given the records of their written portion in a CD and the charges should be paid by the candidate at the time of applying for the post.

Arshad Saeed expressed severe reservation over the lethargic process of the commission and said that these appointments took more than a year’s time span and even some of the applicants were over age now due to the slow process of the commission.

He strongly appealed to the Chief Justice of the Peshawar High Court and the Chief justice of the Supreme Court to provide him with justice and re-open his papers for re-checking and respond to his serious objections.