Orissa High Court Upholds Merit List of ASO Recruitment Exam by OPSC

Cuttack: The Orissa High Court on Friday upheld the merit list of 1104 candidates published by the Odisha Public Service Commission (OPSC) for the Assistant Section Officer (ASO) recruitment exam.

A division bench of the High Court directed resumption of the ASO selection process. Earlier, a single bench of the High Court had stayed the selection process.

“We apprised the High Court that the OPSC has the power to shortlist the candidates. The commission can either fix subject-wise qualifying marks or aggregate qualifying marks as per its decision. The same was mentioned in the advertisement for the recruitment exam,” the lawyer representing the OPSC told media persons.

The ASO recruitment exam was held on August 27, 2022. Its results were declared on November 7, 2022.

Alleging irregularities in the recruitment exam, some candidates had moved the High Court. A controversy also emerged following introduction of ‘qualification mark rule’ by the OPSC to determine the merit list. As per the new rule, candidates in the merit list had to attain a minimum score in each subject, known as the sectional cut-off.

Applicants alleged that the OPSC did not mention this qualifying mark rule in its initial advertisement and introduced it after the written exams.