Telangana HC Stays Group-I Appointments; Verifications Can Continue

Hyderabad: Justice Namavarapu Rajeshwar Rao of the Telangana High Court directed the Telangana Public Service Commission (TGPSC) not to proceed with appointments to Group-I services, made under Notification No. 02/2024 of February 19, 2024.

Justice Rajeswar Rao clarified that while certificate verification may proceed, no appointments should be made until the final hearing. The judge posted the matter for hearing on April 28.

The judge was dealing with a writ plea filed by Group-I aspirants Paramesh Matta and 19 others, most of whom are government employees. They sought to declare the ongoing recruitment as illegal and vitiated by irregularities and inconsistencies in the evaluation of the Mains examination held between October 21 and October 27, 2024. The petitioners said that the marks allotted to them did not reflect their performance.

Senior counsel Rachana Reddy appearing for the petitioners pointed out that two different hall ticket numbers for prelims and mains examination were issued to the candidates, though there was no mention of the same in the recruitment notification. This, she contended, raised serious doubts as there was a sudden increase in the number of candidates who appeared for the examination. It was pointed out that one candidate, Bommu Poojitha Reddy, applied for recounting of her mains answer sheet upon which her marks were reduced by 60 marks, bringing her rank down from 130 to 1,700.

Senior counsel pointed out that candidates from a few examination centres were in the top 100 while those from others scored low marks, highlighting alleged discrepancy and lack of transparency. The petitioners contended that the General Ranking List was erroneous and did not reflect actual merit due to alleged flaws in the evaluation process.

The petitioners alleged that their answer scripts were not properly evaluated and raised serious concerns regarding discrepancy in marks, lack of transparency, and violations of principles of natural justice. The petitioners sought to quash the evaluation and a direction to re-evaluate the marks or hold a re-examination for all candidates who appeared for the Mains. The petitioners sought a court-monitored or independent judicial inquiry into the evaluation process and to publish a fresh General Ranking List based on corrected assessment.

On the other hand, TGPSC standing counsel P.S. Rajasekhar strongly objected to the petitioners’ submissions and contended that the mark sheet of Poojitha Reddy being heavily relied upon by the petitioners was fabricated. He stated that a show cause notice had been issued to her to submit an explanation as to why she should not be debarred from future examinations. Standing counsel produced the copy of the original mark sheet, as against the alleged mark sheet filed by the petitioners.

It was also extensively argued that issuing of separate hall tickets for the prelims and mains exam by TSPSC was an administrative issue within its purview and possibilities of candidates from one centre being more in selection when compared to other centres.

Standing counsel contended that in the absence of Poojitha Reddy as a petitioner in the writ petition, her mark sheet could not be relied upon and used to halt the recruitment process. Senior counsel for the petitioners resisted the contention that the mark sheet of Poojitha Reddy was fabricated and contended that the TSPSC had fabricated the document to protect itself. Counsel also alleged that the TGPSC had a tainted history of several discrepancies in conducting recruitment exams and raised an issue regarding logged changes in answer script evaluations. TGPSC counsel contended that the logged change history could be shown. After hearing the parties at length, the judge directed that Poojitha Reddy be impleaded and her mark sheet as claimed by her be filed as part of the writ petition record, and the logged change history should be produced by the TGPSC.