UPSC selection method comes under SC lens
Pioneer News Service | New Delhi
The scaling technique employed by Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) to weed out lakhs of prospective IAS candidates at the preliminary examination stage faced a tough scrutiny in the Supreme Court recently.
Hearing an appeal filed by the Commission against a Delhi High Court decision allowing a candidate’s request to know the cut-off in each subject under the scaling technique, the Bench of Justices Aftab Alam and RM Lodha questioned the logic behind keeping it a closely-guarded secret. The Bench has fixed November 10, as the next date to hear the Commission’s view on this issue and the argument by candidates.
To appreciate the weight given to the scaling method, the Bench reasoned, “Can the examination not proceed without scaling?”
Solicitor General Gopal Subramanium, who argued for UPSC, said, “We have a median that strikes at midway path. You strike at the subject and with the bell curve you bring it to the mean.”
Not willing to buy the technical explanation, an exasperated Bench exclaimed, “What you (UPSC) say is a statistical formula and is not known to us, so please explain.”
But UPSC kept avoiding the explanation, as it would mean disclosing the cut-off fixed for each of the optional subject arrived through the scaling pro-cess, a demand which it has consistently refused. But the candidates, who obtained a favourable order from the HC, informed the Bench that the secrecy about scaling method was a farce as the same had been disclosed in an affidavit filed before SC in a related case in March 2007. The affidavit described the scaling used by UPSC to be based on “normalised equi-percentile” method as against the standard deviation method used by other State public services commissions.
The candidates had alleged that the UPSC acted arbitrarily in deciding who has to qualify for the Mains Examination since scaling method is employed to judge the optional subject in the Preliminary exam. Solicitor General explained that out of the 23 subjects offered under optional subject, there are some high-scoring subjects and some low-scoring. To arrive at a mean, the scaling method is introduced.
Appearing for the candidates, advocate Prashant Bhushan wondered how the Commission could hide behind the veil of secrecy to deny information, which no more remained a secret.
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