Young people applying for entry-level jobs in Sindh’s bureaucracy have been protesting that only 70 out of over 4,300 of them have passed the exam held by the Sindh Public Service Commission.

They sat ten written papers for the Combined Competitive Examination (CCE), whose shockingly slim number of successful candidates was announced on May 6. This is how assistant commissioners, assistant directors and section officers at Grades 16 and 17 are hired. Lower than 16 is for drivers and clerks hired in the districts. The highest grade is 22. Think chief secretary level.

The SPSC typically passes at least five candidates per seat in its written examinations. However, according to spokesperson Hifzullah Kaka, that doesn’t necessarily apply to the CCE. Nevertheless, the 2024 results still struck protesters as impossible to accept.

Alarm bells started ringing when the detailed marks certificates were uploaded after the results were announced. For instance, the 100-mark optional subject Criminology with a single exam paper was shown as two papers worth 200 marks in the detailed marks certificates. “At first, we thought it might be a mistake,” said Farman Ali, a candidate leading the campaign. “But it wasn’t limited to Criminology. We saw the same issue in Environmental Science as well.” SPSC spokesperson Kaka did not respond to a request for clarification and declined to comment, saying that the matter was in court. When Dawn visited the SPSC on August 5, guards did not permit entry.

By May 7, the day after results were uploaded, social media was flooded with allegations of manipulation to pass a favoured few. That’s when the Sindh Students Action Committee got organised, according to one of the protestors, Wajahat Ahmed. A rally was held after which the protestors decided to keep up the pressure by refusing to move from outside the SPSC head office on Hyderabad’s Thandi Sarak.

The backlash prompted the SPSC to lean on anti-terrorism laws. Among those it acted against was a US-based journalist and YouTuber, Imtiaz Chandio, who, along with two social media activists, Fayyaz Hussain Shar and Rafiullah Qureshi, was booked in a terrorism case for spreading “false propaganda and inciting” the candidates. SPSC Assistant Secretary Muhammad Mustafa registered an FIR at the GOR police station citing multiple sections of the Pakistan Penal Code, the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act and the Anti-Terrorism Act.

On May 13, a rally drew students from across Sindh, who marched from Hyderabad’s Daudpota Library to Thandi Sarak. The next day, MQM-P lawmaker Maaz Mahboob submitted a resolution in the Sindh Assembly against the results, expressing “grave concern over the alleged irregularities, violations of merit and lack of transparency.” The resolution demanded that the disputed results be suspended immediately and an independent forensic audit of the examination process, marking system, and merit list be conducted by the Punjab Forensic Lab or any other impartial institution.

On May 14, protesters launched the Movement for Restoration of Meritocracy, a broader campaign against what they describe as nepotism and the erosion of merit in public recruitment. Its name appears inspired by and rhymes with the famous Movement for the Restoration of Democracy, or MRD, launched in the 1980s to challenge the military regime. Its slogan claps back at the SPSC’s press release telling future candidates to sit the upcoming examinations with “zeal and zest”. So the MRM banners say, ‘Restore meritocracy with zeal and zest’, according to Farman Ali. He works as a grade 11 clerk at the Federal Board of Revenue. “Being a government employee, it is difficult to execute protests and raise a voice,” he said. “Since the intensity of injustice was high, I risked all that.”

Landing in court

The protests swelled, and students filed petitions challenging the results. A few days later, the Sindh High Court suspended them and summoned SPSC officials with the complete examination record. It said everything would be on hold.

“According to the interim order, further appointments and proceedings based on the [CCE-24] results were halted,” Advocate Kamran Ali Isran, one of the lawyers representing the candidates, told Dawn.

On May 22, the court extended the suspension till June 9 as the SPSC said that the record had been sealed in compliance with the court order. The court wanted the SPSC to explain how it addressed complaints that it was not being transparent. A month later, the court told a district and sessions judge to collect the examination record of the candidates who had failed CCE-24, seal it on the spot and bring it to the next hearing.

In response, the SPSC went to the newly created Federal Constitutional Court to challenge the Sindh High Court’s orders through its lawyer Advocate Hafiz Ahsaan Ahmad Khokhar. It argued that the exam was held transparently, fairly and in line with the laws that applied: the Sindh Public Service Commission Act, 2022, and the Recruitment Management Regulations, 2023.

By July 16, the federal court suspended the Sindh High Court’s interim orders for an inquiry, a stop to interviews of successful candidates and a recheck for failed candidates. With those orders lifted, the SPSC went ahead with interviewing the 70 successful candidates.

As the hearings continue, so do the protests, which have spread to Nawabshah, Ghotki, Qambar, Umerkot, Islamkot, and Gambat. “In Sindh, wherever you go, knock on any door and ask, you will find someone who has been a victim of the SPSC,” says Zabiullah Mastoi, one of the participants in Hyderabad.

According to journalist Imdad Soomro, who has covered SPSC for over a decade, the commission has long been a source of concern. “When I investigated it, I found that around 40 per cent of appointments were political, 40pc were made based on money, and only 20pc were on merit,” he claimed. “Gradually, merit came down to around 5pc, while the rest were political appointments or based on money.” Candidates who perform exceptionally well in the written examination are often eliminated at the interview stage, while those with lower written scores are given higher marks in the viva.

The protesters say the court proceedings have done little to help. The camp continues, with candidates insisting they will stay until their demands are met: scrap the CCE-2024 and hold fresh exams, the chairman Muhammad Rizwan along with all commission members should resign, and an independent judicial commission should investigate SPSC examinations and recruitments for grades 16 and 17 over the past five years, among others.

Header image via Facebook/Movement for the Restoration of Meritocracy