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Amid tight security, Group-1 services Mains exam starts in Telangana
Telangana's Group-I mains exams began amid tight security, despite protests and a Supreme Court ruling allowing the tests to proceed without delay.
Amid tight security, the Telangana public service commission (TGPSC) on Monday commenced examination (mains) for the recruitment of various Group-I category posts, even as the Supreme Court refused to grant a stay on the conduct of examinations on the ground that cancelling examination at this state would lead to chaos, people familiar with the matter said.
As per the TGPSC, 31,382 candidates would be appearing for the Group-I Mains examination at 45 centres across Hyderabad, Ranga Reddy, and Medchal-Malkajgiri districts for 563 posts from Monday to October 27.
The recruitment for 563 Group-I posts, including for deputy collectors, revenue divisional officers, municipal commissioners, deputy superintendents of police and mandal parishad development officers, is being held after a long gap of 13 years.
The last time the recruitment was done was in 2011, before the bifurcation of combined Andhra Pradesh state. This is the first recruitment test for top posts after the formation of Telangana in 2014.
A division bench of the Supreme Court comprising Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud and justices JB Pardhiwala and Manoj Mishra, turned down a petition filed by some aspirants challenging the interim order of the Telangana high court on December 16, which refused to postpone the examination.
The petitioners have been strongly opposing the recent government order (GO No. 29 dated February 8) on the criterion for fixing reservations in the filling up of Group-I posts. They have argued that the GO would deprive the SCs, STs and OBCs of the chances of getting the posts under Open Category (OC) quota, even if they have the merit.
The Supreme Court bench said since the issue was already pending disposition in the state high court, there was no point in granting a stay on the conduct of the mains examination. The bench asked the state high court to decide the matter before the declaration of the results on November 20.
During the previous Bharat Rashtra Samithi regime, the Group-I exams were announced but were plagued by paper leaks and controversies, leading to the cancellation of the prelims in 2022 and 2023.
The decision of the state government to go ahead with the Group-I mains examination triggered huge protests from several aspirants for the last two days. On Saturday, the BJP led by Union minister of state for home Bandi Sanjay staged a big demonstration at Ashok Nagar area, a hub of coaching centres for the competitive examinations.
The police, however, foiled the attempts and detained the BJP leader, before shifting him to the party office at Nampally.
On Sunday, too, the protestors gathered at Ashok Nagar to voice their concerns. However, the police personnel deployed in the area took them into preventive custody and shifted them to various police stations.
