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The government has appointed another 96 deprived candidates who passed the 27th BCS examination to various cadres of the Bangladesh Civil Service. A gazette notification in this regard was issued by the Ministry of Public Administration on Wednesday (May 13), following the recommendation of the Bangladesh Public Service Commission.
After winning a legal battle, the Ministry of Public Administration issued a gazette notification on December 18 last year, appointing 673 job candidates of the 27th BCS, two decades after their initial struggle.
The appointed individuals have been requested to join their respective cadre-controlling ministry/division’s designated office by May 18. If no further instructions are received from the cadre-controlling ministry/division, they are to join on that date. The notification states that failure to join on the stipulated date will be considered as unwillingness to join the service, and the appointment letter will be cancelled.
It further stated that, in the interest of preserving the seniority of the newly appointed individuals, their appointment orders will be effective retrospectively from the date the first appointment gazette notification for their batch was issued. Their notional seniority will be maintained from the joining date of the batch’s first appointment notification. However, they will not be entitled to any retrospective financial benefits.
On January 21, 2007, during the BNP government’s tenure, the results of the 27th BCS first viva voce examination were published, with 3,567 candidates passing. Later, on June 30 of the same year, during the state of emergency, the then army-backed government cancelled the results of the first viva voce examination, citing irregularities and corruption. Subsequently, the successful candidates filed a writ petition with the High Court challenging the validity of the cancellation of the viva voce results. On July 3, 2008, the High Court ruled that the government’s decision was valid. Following this, the petitioners filed a leave to appeal with the Appellate Division against that verdict.
Meanwhile, on July 29, 2007, the second viva voce examination of the 27th BCS was held. According to the results published on September 23, 2008, 3,229 candidates passed the second viva voce examination and were subsequently appointed to service. Following this, the candidates who passed the first examination filed three separate writ petitions with the High Court. On November 11, 2023, another bench of the High Court, after hearing these three writ applications, declared the holding of a second viva voce examination for the 27th BCS illegal.
The state party subsequently filed three leave to appeal applications against that verdict, which were disposed of by the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court with certain observations.
Subsequently, candidates who passed the first viva voce examination of the cancelled 27th BCS applied for a review of the Appellate Division’s verdict. On November 7 last year, the Appellate Division granted the review application and ordered it to be taken up for hearing. This opened the way for legal recourse for the review petitioners who had passed the first examination but were deprived of appointment. Later, after hearing the application on February 19 last year, the Appellate Division delivered its verdict on February 20. The verdict reinstated the jobs of 1,137 candidates of the 27th BCS who had been deprived of appointment.
On August 11 last year, the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court published the full verdict, directing the swift implementation of the High Court’s ruling to appoint the 1,137 deprived BCS candidates. The government was instructed to implement this directive.