A probe by the Internal Vigilance Wing of the Kerala Public Service Commission has found anomalies in the valuation of ten questions in the examination for the Chief (Industry and Infrastructure) post in the State Planning Board. According to the interim report filed by the vigilance officer, the answers to nine questions for any of the 228 candidates were not evaluated due to an error in assigning these questions for evaluation in the On Screen Marking (OSM) system.The probe team found that the questions numbering 10 to 18 of none of the 228 answer sheets were assigned to the evaluators. In the case of 177 answer sheets, question 9 was also not assigned for evaluation. The ten descriptive answers carried a total of 58 out of 100 marks. Based on the findings in the interim report, the commission directed the vigilance and internal security officer to carry out a comprehensive probe and submit a report within two weeks.Suspected administrative irregularities in the published rank list for posts in the State Planning Board kicked up a storm last week. The issues have cropped up regarding the evaluation for Chief (Industry and Infrastructure), Chief (Perspective Planning) and Chief (Planning Coordination) posts in the State Planning Board, with a pay of around ₹1.25 lakh a month. The anomalies came to light after a candidate obtained the answer sheets through the Right to Information Act.Meanwhile, the State Information Commission directed the PSC to provide within seven days the copy of the answer sheets as well as all other details to those who asked for it. The Information Commission observed that the PSC could not convincingly explain why it did not provide the answer sheets for a post in which the rank list was already published. It said that existing legal cases cannot be cited as a reason for denying the information.Meanwhile, the Kerala PSC Employees Union alleged in a statement here on Monday that an organised campaign has been unleashed by a section of the media to portray a technical error as sabotage. The Union said that the PSC had entrusted its internal vigilance mechanism to probe the anomalies as soon as the issue came to light. It also rejected allegations that there was a delay in providing a copy of the answer sheets to the aspirants as the copy can be provided only after the publishing of the rank lists when general examinations are held simultaneously for more than one post.The union said that the reports of backdoor appointments within the PSC are misleading as 128 persons were appointed through the PSC rank lists in the Office Assistant post in the past one year. Temporary postings were done only in the PSC Credit Society and PSC Canteen Society, which function according to the cooperative laws. The union said that the Kerala PSC has been a model for PSCs in the other States, with a total of 3.15 lakh recruitments over the past ten years. Published - July 06, 2026 07:17 pm IST