Haryana to Reopen 7-Year-Old Clerk Recruitment, 900 Positions Remain Vacant

Seven years after the original recruitment process, Haryana is set to reopen its clerk recruitment drive that was marred by controversy. The Personnel Department of the Haryana government has sought a report from the Haryana Staff Selection Commission (HSSC) regarding vacant positions from the clerk recruitment notification 5/2019. 

The HSSC had raised questions about the appointment of 900 clerks in 2022 after irregularities were discovered in the examination questions. Out of the 4,798 clerk positions advertised, the Commission had recommended recruiting 900 positions afresh.

Examination Controversy Explained

The controversy stemmed from issues in the examination paper sets. The clerk exam had two sets - Set A and Set C. Questions number 3, 47, and 66 in Set C were identical to questions 24, 62, and 9 in Set A. 

Each question had four options (A, B, C, D). If the correct answer for a question in Set C was option C, the same was true for Set A. The Commission initially awarded marks considering option C as correct in both sets, which resulted in many candidates being eliminated from the recruitment process. 

The High Court later ordered the release of revised results, considering these three questions as correct. This decision led to the termination of clerks who had been working since September 2020. 

Revised Results Changed Rankings 

After the High Court's intervention in April 2022, the HSSC issued revised results. The correction of these three questions increased the scores of over 100,000 candidates while decreasing the scores of 48,000 others.

Additionally, results for 58 candidates were withheld due to mismatches in biometric impressions and facial recognition data. 

Low Turnout for Document Verification 

Between May 21 and June 6, the Commission had called 24,097 candidates for document verification. However, only 13,168 candidates appeared for the verification process, while 10,929 remained absent.

Approximately 900 previously selected candidates failed to appear for document verification. This raised suspicions of widespread fraud in the recruitment process, with concerns that many candidates had obtained socio-economic advantage points based on false documents. They didn't came for document verification becuase of the fear of beung caught. 

The HSSC had originally advertised 4,798 clerk positions in 2019, with appointments made on September 8, 2020, following the release of examination results.