Cancel Group-I preliminary test held on June 11, reconduct it: HC to TSPSC

Telangana HC allows petition to cancel & re-conduct Group-I cadre exam due to lack of biometrics & hall ticket numbers. Judge says TSPSC must follow instructions in notification & re-conduct exam in compliance with rules. Petitioners argued instructions in notification must be followed without exception.

Justice P. Madhavi Devi of Telangana High Court on Saturday allowed a writ petition seeking cancellation and re-conduct of the preliminary examination held June 11 for recruitment of Group-I cadre officers.

Three candidates who appeared for the exam moved the HC, contending that the Telangana State Public Service Commission conducted the test without obtaining the biometrics of the candidates appearing for the exam. They also maintained that the OMR (Optical Memory Read) sheets issued to the candidates did not contain the hall ticket number. 

The TSPSC did not ‘appear to be careful either in conducting the examination or in correlating the data of the candidates who appeared for the examination..’, the judge said in the verdict. Citing a Supreme Court judgement, the judge said the instructions issued by the TSPSC at the time of issuing notification had to be mandatorily followed by the candidates. “They have the force of the law and have to be complied with strictly,” the judgement said. 

If the Commission wanted to introduce any changes in the rules it could do so by issuing an addendum. The TSPSC had issued such an addendum earlier while conducting an exam to fill the posts of the Group-IV cadre. Since no such addendum was issued while re-conducting the Group-I preliminary exam, the Commission should have followed all the rules issued in the notification, the order said. 

The contention of the Commission that the preliminary exam was only a screening test and any candidates getting through the test due to alleged deficiencies or laxities in conducting the exam had to face the main examination “is not acceptable”, the judge said in the order. All successful candidates in the preliminary exam would not be allowed to take the main examination. They would be in the ratio of 1:50 in the order of merit in the preliminary test. Hence, that contention cannot be accepted, the verdict said. 

The judge expressed displeasure over the Commission filing the counter affidavit ‘without taking care to verify the details of the candidates who appeared for the examination’. The Web Note of June 28, 203 stated that 2,33,506 candidates appeared for the test, as against the earlier report of 2,33,248 candidates. In the counter-affidavit filed on July 12, 2023, however, the authorities mentioned that 2,33,248 candidates attended the exam. 

In the notification issued on April 26, 2022, the Commission instructed the candidates to turn up at the exam hall 30 minutes in advance to record their respective biometrics. This instruction was followed when the exam was first conducted on October 16, 2022. Due to the leakage of question papers, the exam was reconducted on June 11, 2023. However, this time the instruction was not adhered to. The petitioners contended that the Commission cancelled the first examination but did not cancel the notification.