Sachin Tendulkar and Sunil Gavaskar born on June 25, believes Haryana Staff Selection Commission

NEW DELHI: Who was the first Indian to win the Miss Universe title? In Indian cinema, who is Aabhas Kumar Ganguly? You may have correctly rattled off “Sushmita Sen” and “Kishore Kumar” as answers, but you probably won’t pass muster at the Haryana Staff Selection Commission with that — the statutory body recognises “Lara Dutta” and “Gulzar” as the correct answers in its written examination for the post of assistant secretary in the Haryana State Agricultural Marketing Board.

The matter has come to light thanks to a plucky examinee who could not make it to the shortlist. The commission admitted to the gaffe only after being dragged to court by the candidate’s advocate, Sourabh Goel. Thanks to the gaffe, only 32 qualified out of the 4,500-odd candidates who had appeared for the test.

As per the petition and reply filed by the Commission, the examination paper had wrong answer keys to as many as 23 questions. Here are some more — while cricket enthusiasts remember June 25 as the date when the Indian team won the World Cup in 1983, the commission expects you to tick the answer that says cricketing icons Sachin Tendular and Sunil Gavaskar were born on June 25.

Similarly, the commission’s answer to which Bollywood flick won entry to the best foreign film category for the year 2007 is ‘Lage Raho Munna Bhai’ and not ‘Rang De Basanti’. Also, according to the commission, CV Raman won a Nobel Prize for discovering electromagnetism, and not for discovery of inelastic scattering of light, also popularly known as “Raman effect”.

Roger Binny, the Anglo-Indian cricketer, performed at state and national level for five years to cement his place in the Indian team to give an outstanding performance in the 1983 World Cup. But, as per the panel, Binny did not play a single match before the 1983 World Cup. The correct answer, it believes, is Sunil Valson. The list rolls on — the author of MK Gandhi’s favourite bhajan “Vaishnava Jana to” is Narsi Mehta, but the paper wrongly identifies “Sant Gyaneshwar” as the right answer. While the document of partnership and co-operation called “a shared vision for the 21st century” is a document between India and Russia, as per the commission, it is with China.

The advocate contended in court that evaluation of the OMR sheets on the basis of the incorrect answer keys (23 out of 200 questions) resulted in arbitrary shortlisting/recommendation of the candidates for the final selection.

And that the selection, Goel averred, should be set aside. After a response was sought by the Punjab and Haryana High Court, secretary (legal) of the commission filed an affidavit last month conceding that answer keys of the disputed 23 questions were incorrect.