Bowing to the intense protest against the J&K Bank’s decision to have different cut-off marks for Kashmir and Jammu, the Bank on Monday announced a uniform cut-off of 40 marks for Probationary Officer (Preliminary) examination across the state. Last week, J&K Bank declared the result of preliminary exams and fixed district-wise cutoff marks to shortlist candidates eligible for the mains, initially scheduled for May 20. The pruned list put 63 marks as the cutoff for the shortlisted candidates from Jammu district whereas candidates from various districts of Kashmir region were given the lowest cutoff at 40 marks. This led to intense protests. State leadership of BJP questioned this discrimination and said, “How can the bank fix district-wise cutoff marks for shortlisting candidates to state-level posts”. IkkJutt chairman Ankur Sharma accused J&K Bank of ignoring merit and demanded termination of its chairman. The state leadership of BJP took this matter with the Governor of Jammu and Kashmir.

 

 

 

One of the J&K Bank officials mentioned, on the condition of anonymity that this discriminatory practice was continued in the Bank for last so many years.

 

Following widespread criticism of the “differential treatment” in its district-wise cutoff announced for the probationary officer (PO) recruitment examination, J&K Bank on Monday announced a uniform cutoff of 40 marks across the state. The J&K Bank advertised 250 posts of POs and 3 phase recruitment process in October 2018.