Compilation Vol 3 Corrected (1-943).pmd - Goa Public Service ...

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interview was as high as 100 and again, admittedly, there has been no guideline or common criteria for
subjecting the candidates of different disciplines through same test. The petitioner – appellant has
raised a very important question regarding the method adopted for testing suitability of 19 candidates
for 17 posts of different disciplines. As no common syllabus was formulated and made available to the
candidates in Ajay Hasia (supra), the Supreme Court observed that one of the most prolific sources of
error in the oral test has been the failure on the part of examiners to understand the nature of evidence
and to discriminate between that which was relevant, material and reliable and that which was not. It
also must be remembered that the best oral interview provides opportunity for analysis of only a very
small part of a person’s total behaviour. Generalizations from a single interview regarding an individual’s
total personality pattern have been proved repeatedly to be wrong. Though inspite of all criticism, the
oral interview method is very much in vogue, but according to the Apex Court in Ajay Hasia (supra)
the same should be a supplementary test only for assessing the suitability of candidates. In “Public
Administration in theory and practice”, a book my M.P. Sharma, a passage relevant to the question
has been quoted in Ajay Hasia (supra), the relevant part of which reads:-
“Different interviewers have their own notions of good personality. For some, it consists
more in attractive physical appearance and dress rather than anything else, and with them
the breezy and shiny type candidate scores highly while the rough uncut diamonds may
go unappreciated. The atmosphere of the interview is artificial and prevents some
candidates from appearing at their best. Its duration is short, the few questions of the hitor-miss
type, which are put, may fail to reveal the real worth of the candidate.”
Though oral interview method, in public employment as the only test cannot per se be legally invalid
in view of the decision of the Supreme Court in Lila Dhar (supra), it has to be observed in the case on
hand that in the absence of any common syllabus or criteria for assessing suitability of candidate of
different disciplines, the oral interview method as the only test has every possibility of suffering from
uncertainty, subjectivity and other unseen vices. We are of the considered view that in such oral
interview for selection of persons for different disciplines like Civil Engineering, Mechanical Engineering,
Computer Science and Engineering, Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry and Economics, it is absolutely
necessary to formulate a common syllabus in the event a common selection is intended without any
written test.
Tripura PSC
16. DISCIPLINEWISE SELECTION WHEN DESIREABLE:-
It would be seen from records that for 4 posts of Assistant Professors in Civil Engineering, there
were only 5 applicants. Similarly for 4 posts in Mechanical Engineering, there were only 4 applicants