HSSC chairman Bharti
QUESTION ROW Was suspended following protests by Brahmins against an ‘insulting’ question on the community in test for JE’S posts
CHANDIGARH: The Haryana government on Tuesday reinstated Bharat Bhushan Bharti as Haryana Staff Selection Commission (HSSC) chairman following a clean chit by justice Darshan Singh (retd) inquiry commission set up about two months ago to look into the case of inclusion of an insulting and objectionable question on the Brahmin community in an HSSC test.
Bharti was suspended exactly two months ago — on May 17 —after various Brahmins’ fora raised a hue and cry and held protests over the issue. The said question in the written examination for the posts of junior engineers (JES) held on April 10 last, asked ‘which one among the following is not a bad omen in Haryana’. The options for the answer were ‘sight of an empty pot, a casket, a black Brahmin, a Brahmin girl’.
Following protests, chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar held the HSSC had not only debarred the examiner who set the question paper from all future assignments, but also withdrawn the question, the protests continued in different parts of the state till the government announced to suspend Bharti.
Earlier also, the HSSC was put in bad light after eight persons, including five employees of HSSC, were nabbed by Haryana chief minister’s flying squad on April 5, who sought bribe from candidates in lieu of government jobs through the HSSC.
This had given ammunition to