Patna: The Bihar Public Service Commission (BPSC) has now notified that the BPSC 70th Combined Competitive Examination (CCE) Prelims exam will be held in single shift on December 13. Thereby, clarifying that no normalisation process will held for the exam. This comes as a relief for the aspirants who were protesting since December 6, Friday about the possibility of normalisation process being carried out.
The arrest of educator and youtuber Faizal Khan, popularly known as Khan sir on Friday also heightened the tensions in the ongoing protest. His arrest came after he joined the protestors outside the BPSC headquarters in Patna.
Police also restored to lathi charge to disperse the protesting students, as per PTI reports.
“When police and administration officials prevented them from proceeding, the protesters sat on the road, disrupting traffic. Despite repeated requests to vacate the area, they refused to leave. Since it is a restricted area and protests are not allowed there, a mild lathi-charge was used to disperse them," Mishra told PTI.
Why are aspirants opposing the normalisation method?
Normalisation method aims to address any discrepancies in the level of difficulty of question papers distributed during various exam shifts. And, because there was a chance that BPSC could be held in two shifts on December 13, protestors demanded that a single shift exam should take place so that 'normalisation process' could be eliminated.
However, according to students, the normalisation method does not provide transparency and may give edge to certain students. It may also benefit one shift over another.
The aspirants are also demanding an extension of the exam date. According to them, many of the aspirants were not able to complete their application form because of 'technical errors'.
Khan sir's role
According to various reports, Khan sir demanded that the BPSC chairman issue a statement rejecting the use of the "normalisation process" for the test and also asked for an extension of the exam date because several applicants had faced technical difficulties.
PTI reported that Khan Sir had willingly visited the Gardani Bagh police station to stress that the protest would continue.
However, later that evening, Khan sir was allowed to leave from the Gardanibagh Police Station.
Patna Police have filed a FIR against the X handle 'Khan Global Studies,' which is affiliated with renowned educator and YouTuber Khan Sir, alleging it of spreading fake news. The police emphasised that the post was meant to confuse students and was offensive, false, and deceptive.
According to Dr. Anu Kumari, Sachiwalaya's Sub-Divisional Police Officer (SDPO), the post made a false allegation that Khan Sir was being held and called for his release.
"Police have initiated the process of taking legal action against social media handle 'Khan Global Studies' for spreading misinformation about the arrest of Khan Sir. It's baseless... he has not been arrested," she said.
BPSC's stance
Ravi S. Parmar, the chairman of the BPSC, called the protests "unwarranted" on December 6 and confirmed that the exam would be administered in a single shift without any normalisation.
A press release was also notified in this regard. It read, “It is important to clarify that the advertisement published for the 70th Combined (Preliminary) Examination does not mention the adoption of the normalization process for this exam, nor has any information been issued by the Commission regarding conducting this exam with a normalization process."
The release further stated that the examination will be held as scheduled on December 13, 2024 (Friday), in a single shift (from 12:00 PM to 02:00 PM), and there is no proposal to adopt any normalization process for this exam.
