43rd BCS: Meeting on gazette dropouts this Thursday

There will be a meeting on Thursday about the applications of those who were dropped from the final gazette of the 43rd Bangladesh Civil Service (BCS) recruitment. An official from the ministry of public administration has confirmed the news to Prothom Alo.

The officer said that there has been no decision that their applications will be considered or a decision will be taken about them on Thursday. However, there will be discussions on that day about the applications that have been submitted. The plan of actions will be decided.

Besides, other issues will be discussed there as well. But, there will be no meeting to take a decision. Many media outlets have reported that the final decision will be taken on Thursday, which is not correct, he added.

For the recruitment of 43rd BCS, the public administration ministry issued a gazette notification on 30 December, canceling the previous one published on 15 October. Some 168 candidates from different cadres were dropped in this gazette.

Earlier, 99 candidates had been dropped in the gazette published on 15 October. Including them all, a total of 267 candidates have been dropped from 43rd BCS. The ministry of public administration has recently come up with an explanation about these candidates being dropped.

The explanation given by the ministry states that the Public Service Commission (PSC) had primarily selected and recommended 2,163 candidates for recruitment to various cadres through 43rd BCS.

According to the BCS recruitment rules, out of the 2,163 candidates recommended by the Special Branch (SB) of Police and the deputy commissioners of respective districts after verification of the candidates, a total of 99 people including 40 who were absent in the medical exam and 59 who were temporarily excluded based on the agency report were excluded. Then a gazette was issued on 15 October last year in favour of the remaining 2,064 candidates.

The explanation further added that after the gazette was issued, questions were raised from different aspect about the acceptability of this recruitment. In order to select candidates with a clean image remaining above all criticism as well as to re-establish trust and confidence in the government recruitment process it was decided to conduct further background checks on the 2,163 candidates recommended in the 43rd BCS through the National Security Intelligence (NSI) and the Directorate General of Forces Intelligence (DGFI).

The NSI and DGFI provided reports on the suitability of the 2,163 candidates. According to the reports, negative remarks (objection / non recommendation) were found in the background checks of 227 candidates. These 227 candidates were temporarily considered unfit for appointment because of the negative remarks and a decision was taken to conduct further screening and inquiry about them.

The 40 candidates absent from the medical examination were also considered unfit for appointment. Under these circumstances, including the 40 people absent from in medical exam and the 227 people temporarily unfit for appointment based on the intelligence agency report, a total of 267 candidates out of 2163 were dropped and a new gazette was issued on 30 December in favour of the remaining 1,896 candidates.

Meanwhile, if anyone of the 227 people considered temporarily unfit for recruitment submits application for review it is being accepted. The ministry of public administration has stated that the opportunity to apply for review is open to all of them.