Hyderabad: At one side, the Public Service Commissions of AP and Telangana have issued notifications to conduct the Group I Main exam as per the orders of the Supreme Court in September 2016 for both states separately.
And on the other side, some aspirants have moved the Hyderabad High Court on the same issue. This has led to a legal question — can a high court deal with the matter when the apex court has ordered a re-examination?
The petitioners say the Apex Court order was based on an interlocutory order and the main petitions moved by three candidates earlier are still pending for final adjudication before the Hyderabad high court.
According to experts, usual practice in the judiciary is that whenever an appeal is moved before the Supreme Court against an interlocutory order of a high court, the top court would remand back the case to the high court concerned while pronouncing its decision on the interlocutory order. But in this case it had not happened.
High court advocate Santosh Kumar felt there is no bar in law to hear a matter by a high court after disposal of the case by the Supreme Court, but the high court normally looked into the maintainability of the petition first and then looked into the issue raised in the pleas.
The advocate appearing for the petitioners, P.V. Krishnaiah, opposing the fresh examination, said: “We have moved the high court as neither the tribunal nor the high court nor the Supreme Court has given a final word on the merits of the cases. First, it has to decide whether the answers given in the final key are wrong or not, and then only will the question of conducting a re-examination arise.”
He said that as per law, an examination will be cancelled only when it was found that there were malpractices. In this case, as no such ground was available, the high court rightly sought an opinion from the UPSC with regard to answers of six questions, but the commission moved the apex court without waiting for the report.
Ravikumar Patro Annepu, one of the petitioners, said not only the main examinations were completed but also the entire selection process for appointment to 312 posts under Group I service was completed.
As many as 600 candidates qualified for the Main examination for which interview was held by the APPSC in 2013, and it may not be possible for them to again write the examinations as was done in 2012 because of the abnormal lapse of time.
