AESRB Recruitment Fiasco: Fresh Allegations Over Recent Faculty Selection

The hiring storm over the Assam Engineering Service Recruitment Board (AESRB) refuses to subside. Day by day, more hopefuls are surfacing with new charges of discrepancies, irregularities, and alleged tampering in the process of faculty recruitment notified under AESRB - 03/2024. “These disclosures are not only casting serious doubts over transparency but also throwing a long shadow over the probity of public recruitment in the technical education system of the state”, Aspirants alleged.

At the center of the controversy are the appointments for the positions of Lecturer (Technical), Lecturer (Non-Technical), and Senior Instructor in various areas of engineering such as Civil, Mechanical, Electrical, and Bio-Medical Engineering, among others. What was to be a recruitment process based on merit now finds itself accused of being non-transparent, full of procedural irregularities, and possibly compromised.

Discrepancies in Merit and Final Selections

A string of specific complaints filed with this publication exposes several cases where candidates ranked much lower in the merit lists were chosen in the final appointments—most of the time from categories they hadn't initially qualified for.

In the stream of Civil Engineering, one of the candidates who was first ranked 56 under the category ST(P) in the written test came mysteriously at Rank 17 under the Unreserved (UR) category in the final list. Another candidate who was ranked 49 under the OBC category in the merit list was chosen in the UR list at Rank 11.

Such category and merit position reversals without any stated rationale indicate a systemic flaw that defies the very principle of equitable competition. In yet another shocking case, in the Bio-Medical Engineering department—where three positions were vacant, two UR (one female) and one OBC-reserved—a candidate ranked ninth from last (Rank 9) in the OBC category was ultimately appointed in the UR female category, even though purportedly not making it through the UR cutoff.

Such manipulations pose an essential question: How are candidates who fall below the unreserved merit cutoff receiving unreserved seats?

The Case That Won't Fade Away

The most contentious incident is a candidate who was earlier disqualified in the 2023 recruitment process for not meeting the minimum educational qualifications prior to the last date of application. Official records indicate that she finished her B.Tech in Bio-Medical Engineering after the last date of submission of applications and was therefore not eligible at the time.

However, owing to what was subsequently admitted by AESRB as an "oversight" while verifying documents, she was permitted to sit for the exam and was even given a faculty appointment in Barpeta Polytechnic. It was only after a complaint was made verbally that her appointment was cancelled by the Higher Education Department through notification dated October 5, 2024.

Alarmingly enough, the same candidate returned in the 2024-25 recruitment cycle, was shortlisted against the OBC category, and was finally recruited in the UR Female category. This despite failure to clear the UR cutoff at the written stage and having claimed OBC reservation during shortlisting—a clear breach of normal reservation rules that require candidates to clear the general cutoff without relaxation in order to be eligible under UR.

“How does a candidate who was previously disqualified, whose appointment had been publicly revoked, end up in the system once more—this time rewarded with an unreserved seat? This is not a slip; it is tantamount to systemic failure or deliberate manipulation” Aspirants alleged.

A Flawed and Opaque Process

Several candidates have expressed serious misgivings regarding the very nature of the selection process. The two-stage scheme involves a 75-mark written examination and a 25-mark Teaching Proficiency Test (TPT). The written examination was conducted from February 28 to March 3, and the TPT from April 3 to April 30.

But serious concerns persist:

Written marks never came out. No cutoffs by categories were released, and candidates remained in the dark about their performance or how selections were finally done.

The last answer key came out quietly on an unseen page of the site once interviews had been initiated, depriving hope aspirants of any opportunity to raise legitimate objections.

There were no TPT marking guidelines issued. The candidates were assessed on a randomly allocated subject in a 7-minute lecture with no preparation time—equating to an unfair 25% of the total marks being allocated in an unknown and highly subjective format.

One candidate rightly asked, "How is teaching competency to be reasonably evaluated within 7 minutes, with no rubric, and no preparation time, whereas the written test had 150 minutes of designed assessment?"

Adding to the suspicions, the last results were announced in the evening on July 15, and the appointment letters were expedited within 48 hours—leaving hardly any time for judicial scrutiny. This last-minute rush has only strengthened fears of a planned cover-up.

Opaqueness Persists in Assistant Professor Hiring

In the simultaneous recruitment process for Assistant Professors (Technical) through Advertisement No. 1/25, the condition is even worse. The written test was held on June 15 and the results were declared on July 9. But no marks or merit list were announced—only shortlisted candidates' roll numbers.

This is a calculated step. Following the commotion generated by merit-based discrepancies in the Lecturer recruitment, AESRB has given up transparency in entirety in the Assistant Professor recruitment in anticipation of evading comparisons or challenges. 

Pratidin Time has received a letter from an aspirant addressed to the Chief Minister, demanding accountability and a thorough investigation into what they allege to be tampering in the recruitment process.

 As allegations continue to mount and uncertainty looms over the fairness of the selection, aspirants are now pressing the AESRB authorities and the government for clear answers and an official clarification.

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