Patna high court Archives

BSEB May Delay Bihar STET Admit Card 2019 Download Date, Reopen Application Form.

Source – news.aglasem.com

Teaching aspirants across Bihar are waiting eagerly to download STET admit card 2019. It has been more than three weeks since the application form submission ended. And most importantly, the exam date is supposed to be November 7, 2019, which is only two weeks away.

Candidates are expecting STET admit card for the Bihar Secondary Teacher Eligibility Test 2019 to be released this week. However, even now there is neither any link to download admit card, nor any notification about its release date yet.

There are high chances that BSEB may have to delay releasing the STET admit card 2019. This is because of the decision of the high court to remove age limit.

As per latest reports, the Patna High Court has ordered Bihar School Examination Board (BSEB), which the conducting body for STET 2019, to remove the age limit in the exam. As per the report, the high court deems that since the state had not conducted any STET in the last 8 years, many candidates who were waiting for the exam have crossed the STET 2019 age limit now. It is not, as per the decision, the candidates’ fault that they do not fulfill the age limit.

Now if BSEB has to adhere to this decision, then it will have to remove the age limit. As per Bihar STET 2019 notification, the age limit was as follows: general male – 37 years, general female / BC male / BC female / EBC male / EBC female – 40 years, SC male / SC female / ST male / ST female – 42 years.

And if the age limit is removed, then all the candidates who were earlier not eligible for the STET 2019, will now be eligible, and they will have to be given a chance to apply. In that case, the online application form of the exam will reopen.

If the application form submission reopens, then admit card cannot be released immediately. So it will take some time after that for BSEB to issue the hall tickets.

Whether exam date will also be postponed is another question. After the court decision, there is no notification on the official website bsebstet2019.in or on the board website biharboardonline.bihar.gov.in regarding either the decision, or what next.

The only confirmed thing right now is that whenever the admit card is released, it will be made available at bsebstet2019.in only. There, candidates will have to login with application number and date of birth in order to download their admit card.

Bihar STET 2019 is being organized to fill 25,270 vacancies of teachers in classes 9th and 10th, and 12,065 in classes 11th and 12th. For classes 9th, 10th, there will be paper 1, and for classes 11th, 12th, there will be paper 2. Recruitment of teachers will only be on the basis of merit obtained in the exam, subject to fulfillment of eligibility criteria and verification of documents. Both the papers will be 2.5 hours long, without any negative marking.

How Bihar PSC cleaned its act: Codes, late choices.

Source – indianexpress.com

Long wrestling with allegations of corruption and nepotism, the Bihar Public Service Commission (BPSC) has introduced radical reforms over the past 18 months, the most important of them concealing the identity of a candidate through a code system. Public Service Commissions of at least seven states have approached the BPSC seeking to replicate the system, while others have expressed interest.

Recently, the BPSC held prelims for its 65th combined services exam for 2019 vacancies, thus putting on track a schedule that had been running behind by years.

Under the new system, each candidate is allotted a code, which is then placed on his/her answersheet instead of the roll number. The evaluation is done under CCTV surveillance, and an examiner cannot leave the premises till checking for the day is done. Even the BPSC Chairman and the Controller of Examination do not know the questions, and the former randomly selects a question set from among seven sets.

The interviewers too receive only the code number of a candidate, with no details of his or her name and family details, nor are they allowed to ask any questions regarding this. The composition of the interview panel is decided just half an hour before an interview.

The BPSC, like the UPSC (Union Public Service Commission), now includes former diplomats, retired bureaucrats, and ex-IPS officers, including generals, CBI, CRPF and IB, RAW directors, as members. Its seven members, including the chairman, are selected by the Governor in consultation with state government. In the existing body, three members retired recently.

BPSC Chairman Shishir Sinha said, “The commission had been witness to several protests and litigations. We needed a completely transparent system.”

In 2009, the Patna High Court ordered had rescheduling of the BPSC’s 52nd prelims exam following a plea alleging anomalies. Earlier, in 2005, former BPSC chairman Ramsinghasan Singh and eight others had been arrested on the allegation that 184 candidates had been elevated to the Bihar Administrative Services.

Haryana and Odisha are among seven states which are keen to replicate the BPSC reforms, and chairmen of their PSCs recently visited Bihar. Earlier, a former chairman of the Uttar Pradesh Service Commission had visited the BPSC.

Sinha said their first challenge was to regularise examinations, using the same workforce and resources. Between April 2018 and October 2019, the BPSC released pending results of its 56th to 59th combined services examinations, while simultaneously conducting examinations for 60th to 62nd lists and releasing the final results. Last week, it announced the final results of its 63rd examination, with a Madhya Pradesh resident emerging as the topper. The written test for the 64th exam has been conducted and the interview would be held in the coming two months, while the BPSC just held the prelims for the 65th exam.

“Earlier, the chairman decided the members of an interview panel. We introduced a software with names of the experts, and while we call all of them an hour before the interview, the names for the panel are picked by the software with half an hour to go. The panel gets a sealed envelope with codes of 10 candidates. This ensures that till the last moment, neither candidates nor panelists nor any other staff of the commission knows who is interviewing whom,” Sinha said, adding, “The printer alone knows the questions selected, and can be held responsible for a leak.”

The BPSC’s evaluation rooms and its entrance are monitored by 30-plus CCTV cameras, while the strongroom holding the answer sheets is now just next door, to minimise human involvement in transfer of papers. The rooms are being further fortified.

As it places its house in order, the BPSC has seen a change in the profile of applicants, with many of them graduates from IITs, NITs and BITS-Pilani, the BPSC said. Administrative services are now the first preference against police services earlier. Over 20,000 applicants were from Delhi alone for the 65th prelims.

Admitting that they faced initial resistance from within, but “zero interference”, the Chairman said, “Why should interviewers know a candidate’s surname and family details? This has got us praise from the UPSC.”

BPSC Secretary Keshav Ranjan Prasad recounted his own experience, saying while he gave the prelims in 1984, he got a job only four years later. “I can understand the pain and frustration of a candidate through the prolonged process. We are aiming at completing the entire process in a year. We are pretty close to doing so.”

In the last fully completed exam (the 63rd), 90,697 candidates appeared for the prelims, 4,277 cleared the exam, 4,161 gave the written test, 924 appeared for the interview, and 355 got through. This process was completed in 15 months.

Bihar seeks legal opinion on EPF benefits to teachers.

Source – hindustantimes.com

After the Patna High Court order and letter from the additional central provident fund commissioner (Bihar and Jharkhand) Rajib Bhattacharya to the additional chief secretary (education) RK Mahajan, the state government has finally sought legal opinion on extending EPF coverage to its nearly four lakh teachers.

“The government has sought legal opinion from the advocate general on how to go about it. Once the opinion arrives, the government will initiate the process,” said a senior official of the education department.

Interestingly, while the teachers are yet to get PF facility, it is already there for nearly 19,000 tola sevaks and nearly 9,000 volunteers of Talimi Markaz, who were deployed on a fixed salary to being out-of-school children to schools.

On October 16, the Bihar Education Project Council also issued directive for deduction of EPF amount from resource teachers and other employees.

In his letter, a copy of which has also been sent to chief secretary Deepak Kumar, the additional commissioner, EPFO, has stated that the matter needed to be resolved immediately as the HC might initiate contempt proceedings if the timeline of 60 days stipulated for compliance of its order and extension of PF benefits to teachers were not adhered to. Nearly a month has already lapsed since the order was passed.

“It is requested that nodal officer for each district as well as state coordinator may be nominated at the end of this month by the department of education to work with EPFO’s nodal officers for initiating action as per the EPF & MP Act, 1952. The compliance of the court is possible only when the department initiates the process,” he wrote.

Hearing a writ petition filed by two teachers from Maner and Nalanda, the bench of Justice Anil Kumar Upadhyay had last month directed the regional PF commissioner to see that the petitioners were benefited by the EPF scheme. “Necessary action in terms of the provisions of the Act must be taken by the officer at the earliest, preferably within a maximum period of 60 days from the date of receipt/production of a copy of this order,” the bench observed.

Regional PF commissioner RW Syiem said the additional commissioner had held meetings with Mahajan in the light of the Patna HC order for timely compliance. “The department has sought legal opinion from AG, but so far we have not been apprised of it. We have also written to the executive director of the Bihar Education Project Council, as a large number of teachers are under it,” he said.

Syiem said the EPFO has been consistently approaching the government for extension of PF coverage to all teachers. “We have also written to the district education officers (DEOs). We are serious about it,” he said.

A senior education department official said the huge backlog had created a difficult situation for the government, as PF was a statutory requirement. “When even tola sevaks have been extended the PF facility, why were teachers kept out of it for so long? Perhaps the AG will suggest a way out,” he said.

Patna High Court withdraws judicial work from senior judge

Source: thehindu.com

The Patna High Court has withdrawn all judicial work from a sitting senior judge of the court Rakesh Kumar who had in the course of hearing a corruption case against a former IAS officer on Wednesday highlighted the state of corruption in the judicial system. A 11-judge bench also suspended Justice Kumar’s order and ruled that no action ordered by him would be taken.

“All the matters pending before Hon’ble Mr. Justice Rakesh Kumar, sitting singly including tied up/part heard or otherwise stand withdrawn with immediate effect,” read a notice issued by the chief justice of the Patna High Court on August 28. “The registrar will implement the order forthwith subject to further orders with regard to the formation of the bench,” the bench said in the notice, which came into the public domain on Thursday. The bench also observed that their fellow judge had no “jurisdiction to pass such an order on a case that had been closed”.

“The registrar (list) will inform as to how and in what manner Cr. Misc. No. 4117 of 2018 that had been disposed of finally earlier was listed on Thursday at Sl. No. 1 under the heading ‘To be mentioned – Tied up’ before Justice Rakesh Kumar,” the bench said in the notice.

The Bihar Advocate General Lalit Kishore told journalists in Patna that the bench had also made strong observations and expressed serious concern over the long order passed by Justice Kumar in which he had raised questions over the majesty of the court and integrity of judicial system.

Before his elevation as a judge, Justice Kumar had served as a CBI counsel in the Patna High Court during hearings on the multi-crore fodder scam case against the then chief minister and RJD chief Lalu Prasad . On Wednesday, while hearing a corruption case against retired IAS officer K. P. Ramaiah, Justice Kumar in his 20-page order had questioned how the former officer was granted bail in a corruption case when the High Court as well as the Supreme Court had earlier rejected it. Mr. Ramaiah was accused of financial misappropriation of ₹5 crore in the Bihar Mahadalit Vikas Mission when he was its CEO. “A corrupt officer like K. P. Ramaiah secured bail as a vacation judge heard his case in place of the regular judge of the Vigilance Court,” Justice Kumar said in his order.

“In normal course, I would not have passed such order, but since last few years, this Court is taking notice of the fact that in Patna Judgeship, things are not going in its right perspective,” Justice Kumar observed, while adding that the manner in which Mr. Ramaiah was granted bail required a deeper probe as it had raised questions about the judiciary. Justice Kumar also ordered an inquiry to be conducted by the District Judge, Patna, to check the veracity of a news report. Further while calling for a report within four weeks, he also ordered an inquiry into whether on the date of granting bail to Mr Ramaiah, the regular vigilance court judge was on leave due to a genuine cause or had gone on leave in a calculated way. The District Judge was also asked to examine the record of cases disposed of by the in-charge judge in the last six months.

In his order, Justice Kumar also raised questions about the judiciary and said that the full bench of the Patna High Court had taken a lenient view every time the case of any judge from the lower judiciary came up. “Despite my opposition, a judge facing serious charges was let off with minor punishment instead of exemplary punishment,” Justice Kumar said in his order. He also made scathing remarks about taxpayers’ money being spent on renovation of judges’ homes. “There were instances of crores of the taxpayers’ money being spent on renovation and furnishing bungalows of judges as well as nepotism,” he said in the order. Further, Justice Kumar ensured that a copy of his order be sent to the Chief Justice of India, the Prime Minister’s office and the Union Law ministry.