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TSPSC Group-1 prelim exam cancelled, Telangana high court asks for retake
The applicants will be notified about the date, when the exam will be conducted again, in the due course.
The Telangana high court on Saturday ordered cancellation of preliminary examinations for recruitment for Group-1 services in the state government held by the Telangana State Public Services Commission (TSPSC) on June 11, people familiar with the matter said.
A single-judge bench of Telangana high court headed by justice P Madhavi Devi pronounced the judgment after hearing a batch of petitions filed by several candidates, backed by National Students Union of India (NSUI), who contended that the commission had violated its own guidelines mentioned in the recruitment notification for Group-1 services.
Arguing for the petitioners, senior advocate Aloor Giridhar Rao brought to the notice of the court that the TSPSC authorities did not collect the biometric details of the candidates, while allowing them into the examination hall, though it was clearly mentioned in the notification.
The counsel for the petitioner also argued that OMR (optical mark recognition) sheets given to them did not have hall ticket numbers.
Agreeing with their contention, the judge ordered the commission to cancel the Group-I preliminary examination forthwith and conduct the examination afresh.
The applicants will be notified about the date, when the exam will be conducted again, in the due course.
There was no immediate response from the government, but a senior TSPSC official familiar with the development said the commission would file a review petition before the division bench, after obtaining the order copy of the single judge bench.
Over 232,000 candidates appeared for the exam which was conducted by the TSPSC on June 11 for recruitment to 503 Group-I posts such as: deputy collectors, tehsildars, deputy superintendents of police, commercial tax officers and mandal parishad development officers etc., in the government.
Speaking to reporters, NSUI Telangana unit president Balmoori Venkat alleged that the TSPSC had totally bungled in the conduct of such a prestigious recruitment test.
“The commission did not follow the biometric system, though it was mentioned as a part of the guidelines in the recruitment notification,” he said.
Venkat pointed out that there were discrepancies in the number of OMR sheets too.
“Earlier, the number of OMR sheets was 233,206. After 17 days, they [TSPSC] added 258 sheets through a web note. This means that the number of candidates appearing for exam also changed,” he alleged.
This is the second time that the same exam has been cancelled.
On March 17, the TSPSC had cancelled the exam, that was conducted on October 26 last year due to question paper leakage scam that had rocked the state.
The TSPSC had to cancel several recruitment exams due to the scam allegedly involving its own employees, which was unearthed by a special investigation team (SIT) constituted by the state government to probe into the matter of TSPSC exam papers being leaked.
