JAIPUR, July 29: Several candidates for the State Civil Services Examinations, conducted by the Rajasthan Public Service Commission (RPSC), today moved a petition in the High Court following the leakage of questions of the exams scheduled for yesterday at Jaipur and Ajmer.

The candidates requested the court that the entire examination process be started afresh and also to order a CBI inquiry.

Counsel for the candidates, Virendra Lodha, told The Indian Express that the Court has issued notices to the State Government and RPSC in the case and asked them to file their replies by August 2. The next date for hearing in the case has been fixed for August 4.

The Court directed that one set of question papers, including the model papers, of all subjects be deposited with the court. The court observed that if the history question papers are found to match those published in a local daily today, the entire examination process would be cancelled, Lodha said.

The two papers scheduled for yesterday General Hindi and General English have already been cancelled. While examinations for other papers will be held as scheduled, the new dates for the two cancelled papers will be announced later by RPSC.

Agitated examinees said they had decided not to appear in the optional subjects, scheduled for tomorrow, in view of the large-scale irregularities in the conduct of the examinations.

The petition moved by the candidates in the HC comes close on the heels of another case alleging favouritism and defective evaluation of papers in the 1994 examinations conducted by RPSC. The hearing on the earlier petition, by a double bench of the High Court, was reported to be over. The bench has, however, reserved the judgement in the case.

High drama marked the start of the Rajasthan Civil Services Main Examination yesterday. At one of the centres located in Topkhana area, the examinees left their seats immediately after receiving the question papers and stormed out of the test centre.

They then went to other centres all over the city persuading candidates to stage a walkout.

The candidates collected at Statue Circle near the Secretariat protesting against large-scale bungling in the examination process. They pointed out that some of the questions had become known earlier and had even been published in a local daily. The question papers were being sold, they alleged.

Agitated candidates also met Chief Minister Bhairon Singh Shekhawat and Chief Secretary M L Mehta who assured them of action in the matter.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.