16-06-2025
Surjewala alleges HPSC ‘copied' 26 questions from Bihar exam
Senior Congress leader and Rajya Sabha MP Randeep Singh Surjewala alleged Sunday that 26 questions from a recent Haryana Public Service Commission (HPSC) exam for the post of Assistant Professor (Geography) were copied verbatim from the exam conducted by the Bihar Public Service Commission (BPSC) for the same post.
According to Congress leaders, Haryana's 100-question multiple-choice exam was held on June 8, 2025, whereas Bihar's corresponding exam took place on April 29, 2025. Surjewala questioned the necessity of conducting a separate HPSC exam if questions were merely copied from BPSC's paper. He noted that candidates who appeared for the Haryana exam have already raised concerns with the commission. Surjewala also alleged a similar issue with HPSC's Assistant Professor (History) exam, conducted on May 18, 2025, where 22 questions were copied verbatim from a corresponding exam conducted by Chhattisgarh Public Service Commission on September 28, 2016.
Additionally, he claimed that 16 questions from Haryana's History Assistant Professor exam had previously appeared in the Uttarakhand State Eligibility Test held on January 7, 2024.
Highlighting alleged errors, Surjewala pointed out that incorrectly framed questions from the Chhattisgarh exam had been repeated in Haryana's paper. For instance, question number 44, related to the Saluva dynasty of Vijayanagar, had incorrect answer choices in Chhattisgarh's exam and was replicated unchanged in Haryana's paper. Similarly, question number 49 in Chhattisgarh's paper contained discrepancies in Hindi and English versions of the answer choices, yet HPSC adopted the same flawed question as it was.
In response, a senior HPSC officer defended the commission, stating that it was humanly impossible to verify whether a particular question had been previously used by any recruitment agency in any of India's 28 states, apart from Union Public Service Commission (UPSC).
The officer added that HPSC ensures exam syllabus compliance, maintains secrecy, and conducts exams without paper leaks, emphasising that the priority is to hold a fair and transparent recruitment process.
