E-Paper
Telangana guv refuses to accept TSPSC chairman’s resignation
An official in the state secretariat said the TSPSC chairman indicated to Revanth Reddy that eight other members of the commission would also step down from their posts on Tuesday
Controversy erupted over the resignation of Telangana State Public Service Commission (TSPSC) chairman B Janardhan Reddy, as state governor Tamilisai Soundararajan on Tuesday refused to accept the same and threw it back into the court of the Congress government headed by chief minister A Revanth Reddy, people familiar with the matter said.
Janardhan Reddy sent his resignation letter to Raj Bhavan on Monday night, within hours of attending a meeting convened by the chief minister to review the status of inquiry into the alleged leakage of question papers of various recruitment tests held by the TSPSC for the last one year.
An official in the state secretariat said the TSPSC chairman indicated to Revanth Reddy that eight other members of the commission would also step down from their posts on Tuesday, to facilitate the government forming a new board of the commission.
However, a Raj Bhavan spokesperson, who refused to be quoted said, the governor had not accepted the resignation of Janardhan Reddy, as she had already left for Puducherry even before the resignation letter reached her office.
“The governor has made it clear that there is no question of accepting the resignation of the TSPSC chairman or any of its members, unless the ongoing investigation into the alleged leakage of question papers for recruitment tests is completed, responsibility is fixed and action is taken against the persons involved in the leakage scam,” the spokesperson said.
According to him, Tamilisai had already written a letter a couple of months ago to the Union HRD ministry against the alleged scandal in the TSPSC seeking a comprehensive probe into it.
“The ministry, in turn, referred it to the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) and the latter wrote to then Bharat Rashtra Samithi government led by former chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao to submit a report on the action taken in this regard. But there was no reply from the previous government, maybe due to the announcement of the election schedule,” the spokesman said.
He said Tamilisai would write a letter to chief secretary Shanti Kumari in a day or two, seeking an action taken report on the TSPSC scam and also whether she should accept the resignations of the TSPSC chairman and members. “The governor is of the view that they cannot just get away by stepping down from their posts. They should be held responsible for all the happenings in the recruitment scam,” the spokesman added.
On March 13, the Hyderabad police announced busting of the question paper leakage in the TSPSC by arresting nine people. Subsequently, the TSPSC cancelled the examinations for Group-I, assistant engineers, veterinary assistant surgeons, divisional accounts officer etc, after the case was entrusted to a Special Investigation Team within two days.
As the investigation progressed, the SIT authorities arrested over 100 persons connected with the case. They also questioned TSPSC chairman B Janardhan Reddy, senior IAS officer Anitha Ramachandran who is the secretary of the TSPSC and others including members of the commission.
Cases were booked against the accused under Sections 409 (criminal breach of trust), 420 (cheating) and 120-B (criminal conspiracy) of Indian Penal Code, besides Section 66 (b) (c) and 70 of Information Technology Act and Section 8 of Prevention of Examinations Malpractices Act.
On June 11, the TSPSC re-conducted the examination for 503 Group-I posts, which include deputy collectors, tehsildars, deputy superintendents of police, commercial tax officers and mandal parishad development officers etc in the government.
But the commission allegedly bungled the conduct of the recruitment test again, as it violated its own guidelines like following the biometric system and there were discrepancies in Optical Mark Reader (OMR) sheets.
Following a petition filed by National Students Union of India (NSUI) state president Balmoori Venkat in June this year, the Telangana state high court cancelled the examination again.
