The Telangana High Court has ordered interim suspension of a single judge’s directive to re-evaluate Group-1 mains exam answer sheets. Appointments made in the meantime will depend on the final outcome of the writ appeals.
The Telangana High Court on Wednesday gave temporary relief to the Telangana Public Service Commission (TGPSC) by putting on hold a previous order of a single judge that had directed the re-evaluation of all answer sheets from the Group-1 mains examination held last year.
A division bench led by Chief Justice Aparesh Kumar Singh and Justice G M Mohiuddin heard the writ appeals filed by the Commission and several “successful” candidates against the September 9 order of the single judge.
The bench said that any appointments made during this period would remain subject to the final outcome of these writ appeals. The next hearing in the matter has been fixed for October 15.
The High Court observed,
“In the meantime, there shall be interim suspension of the operative direction contained in paragraph No.372 of the impugned order.”
During the hearing, the counsel representing the Commission and the successful candidates urged the Court to stay the September 9 order, arguing that the single judge had committed a “serious error” by stating that the examination lacked transparency and integrity, and that the Commission had deviated from its own rules and acted in a biased way.
They further contended that there was no proof of any malpractice, such as leakage of question papers, answer sheets, or mass irregularities during the conduct of the examination.
On the other side, counsel for the petitioners defended the single judge’s decision.
Earlier, on September 9, the single judge had cancelled both the Final Marks List and the General Ranking List that were released by the TGPSC in March this year.
The order also gave two alternatives to the Commission: either re-evaluate the Group-1 answer sheets by applying the moderation method manually as directed by the Supreme Court and then declare the results, or cancel the entire mains examination and re-conduct it only for those candidates who had cleared the prelims.
The September 9 judgment came after a series of petitions were filed by Group-1 aspirants who alleged that there were irregularities in the conduct and evaluation of the exam.
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