Srinagar: The ongoing judicial service exam in J&K has landed in a controversy with some aspirants, student activists and political parties alleging irregularities after a seemingly disproportionate number of candidates from the Jammu region made it to the final shortlist.Arun Kumar Chaudhary, chairman of Jammu and Kashmir Public Service Commission (JKPSC) which is conducting the exam however dismissed the allegations, saying that “merit of students” was the “only selection criteria” for recruiting judicial officers in the Union Territory.“An aspirant’s region or religion has no basis in the recruitments which are done only on the basis of merit,” Chaudhary told The Wire. The recruitment process has come under scrutiny at a time when some Hindu rightwing outfits backed by the ruling Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP) are pushing for a second bifurcation of the Union Territory by carving out Jammu state. The call has got the backing of some politicians from Kashmir, including the J&K Peoples Conference chairman Sajad Lone.The controversy broke out after the JKPSC declared the result of the written test for 42 posts of civil judges in the department of law, justice and parliamentary affairs on Tuesday (January 20).Official figures shared with The Wire by the JKPSC reveal that 3801 aspirants appeared in the preliminary exam held in September last year out of which 1,016 candidates were selected for the ‘mains’ exam which was conducted in November.Of these, 621 aspirants belong to the Jammu division of the Union Territory which has a population of 53 lakh, as per Census 2011, while only 385 candidates hail from Kashmir which has a higher population of 68 lakh. Besides, ten aspirants from Ladakh also qualified for the mains exam, according to the JKPSC data.However, in the list of 124 aspirants who were declared to have qualified for the interview, only 25 are from Kashmir while 98 successful candidates hail from Jammu division and one from Ladakh.The interview of the selected candidates is “tentatively” scheduled to be held from the second week of February, according to a JKPSC notification.Dozens of aspirants staged a protest outside the JKPSC office on Wednesday seeking a review of the selection process while demanding the commission to reveal the evaluation methodology and centre-wise data of selected candidates.Muneeb Ahmad, one of the aspirants who participated in the protest, said that the result of the main exam was finalised in “a short span of 45 days,” while claiming that the result of the judicial service exam which was conducted in 2023 is still awaited. “It shows some gross irregularity which has raised doubts. We are not against merit but transparency is equally important,” Ahmad said. The protesters alleged that all the candidates who wrote their papers at one exam centre in Srinagar were declared to have failed by the commission. Another aspirant who couldn’t be identified immediately said that the commission should uphold transparency and conduct the exam afresh. “It seems the answer scripts from the centre may not have been evaluated at all. We demand an independent probe,” he said, urging the lieutenant governor Manoj Sinha and chief minister Omar Abdullah to intervene in the matter. The allegations of disparity have prompted uproar in Kashmir with prominent student activists, J&K Apni Party chief Altaf Bukhari and former mayor of Srinagar Junaid Mattu accusing the commission of manipulating the selection list to favour the Jammu region, a BJP stronghold. The JKPSC chairman Choudhary however labelled the allegations as “misleading”. Sachin Jamwal, JKPSC controller of examinations, said that the examinations were conducted “with complete fairness and full transparency, strictly in accordance with established rules and procedures”. “Every candidate is treated equally, and the process is governed by robust safeguards that leave no scope for bias, manipulation, or external influence. The evaluation process is conducted at the highest possible standards of confidentiality and security,” he said in a statement to The Wire.However, Sahil Parray, a prominent student activist, termed the alleged disparity in the selection list as a case of “systemic elimination” of aspirants of Kashmir region from the elite service. “It is not coincidence but systemic elimination and a murder of confidence. Kashmiri aspirants are being made to suffer while the government which was elected to handhold the youth adopts a criminal silence,” he said. Mir Mujeeb, another student activist, said that the “strike rate” of aspirants from Jammu was “incredible and utterly shocking”.“This system needs an overhaul — RIGGING OF MERIT + PAPER CHORI only robs the General category population of J&K. Issue cannot be left to the wolves and needs immediate intervention,” he posted on X. The J&K Apni Party chairman Bukhari said that the allegations were “a matter of serious concern”, terming the result as an instance of “stark regional imbalance” while demanding “fair and impartial investigation”. He said that the result was “subjected to communal considerations”, given the “disproportionate ratio of shortlisted candidates” from Jammu region. “At a time when mistrust prevails in both regions, the only responsible course is to keep the results in abeyance and initiate a transparent, independent inquiry,” he said. The controversy has also added fuel to the ‘Hindu Jammu’ versus ‘Muslim Kashmir’ fire that has been burning in the Union Territory in the aftermath of the closure of a medical college in Reasi district last month following protests by the BJP-backed Hindu rightwing groups.Former mayor of Srinagar Mattu, who has backed the call for separating Jammu from Kashmir valley said that the result of the judicial exam was a “justification for Kashmir being freed from Jammu’s exploitative clutches”.“No candidate from number series of 7900590-7901004 who appeared in mains qualified for interview! No points for guessing that these rolls numbers belonged to the Kashmir center. A consecutive series of candidates (likely with sequential roll numbers) were declared failed to exclude Kashmiris from the process en-masse! How much more are Kashmiris supposed to tolerated? We are being exterminated out of the vocational, professional, institutional and economic mainstream,” he claimed in a post on X.This is not the first time that the examination for the highly competitive government jobs in Jammu and Kashmir, which has one of the highest unemployment rates in the country, have been marred by controversy.In July 2022, following protests by thousands of job aspirants, the recruitment for J&K Police sub-inspector posts was scrapped with a Central Bureau of Investigation probe revealing that the exam papers were sold for Rs 20 to 30 lakh.Following the abrogation of Article 370, at least three major recruitment exams conducted by J&K’s Services Selection Board were cancelled following allegations of disparities and irregularities.