IAS aspirant ends life over UPSC result confusion

Dejected at the confusion over his Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) result, a civil service aspirant has committed suicide at Napoklu in Madikeri.

Manjunath V Y (24) appeared for the UPSC interview in New Delhi on April 16. Confident of clearing the interview, Manjunath got a rude shock when the results were announced on May 3. His roll number (538745) featured in the list of successful candidates (264th rank), but the name against the number read Ashwin B.

Manjunath tried to contact the UPSC by all possible means. His family said he did not receive any satisfactory response. Aghast, Manjunath left home on Thursday.

On Saturday, the family was informed that Manjunath was found hanging at an under-construction building at Napoklu in Madikeri district. The family blamed the error by the UPSC for his death.

The Napoklu police identified Manjunath from his PAN card found in his bag lying nearby.
Sub-inspector Shanmugam told Deccan Herald that the police found his cousin Asha’s number in his mobile phone and informed her of his death. The family immediately rushed to Napoklu. An autopsy of the body was carried out at Napoklu Primary Health Centre. The police said they had evidence of some documents being burnt on the spot. They also recovered Manjunath’s Aadhar card, voter identity card, mark sheets and his childhood photographs.

Manjunath was the eldest of the three sons of Yadavamurthy, a clerk with the collegiate department. He shared a one-room apartment with his family at Sriramapuram. He had obtained an education loan to pursue BE in Information Science from a City college. He started preparing for the civil service examination simultaneously and cleared it in the first attempt.

His family said when Manjunath called the toll free number mentioned on the UPSC website, he was told to send a formal communication. He also sent a letter and fax to the UPSC on May 8.

According to sources in the UPSC, someone on behalf of Manjunath had approached the commission, seeking clarification on the result. The officials had asked him to bring the candidate along with his original hall ticket to the office “any day.” However, Manjunath did not turn up.

The officials ruled out such anomalies since the commission had a proper mechanism in place to address grievances of candidates. The UPSC has a facilitation counter at its office in Delhi where candidates can visit and clarify doubts. They can also contact the UPSC over the phone. The commission will soon make public marks obtained by successful candidates, an official said.

“I have not received any letter like that. If it comes, we will examine it,” said V Narayanasamy, Minister of State for Personnel, Public grievance and Pension.