Select from untainted candidates for vacancies: Madras HC

Chennai: Quashing a notification issued by the Teacher’s Recruitment Board, cancelling the examination conducted in September 2017 for appointment to the post of Lecturers in various disciplines in the government polytechnic colleges for the year 2017-2018, the Madras high court has directed the Board to reject the candidature of 196 candidates who were accused of tampering with the scanned images of the OMR Sheets and take out the remaining OMR Sheets in original of the non-tainted candidates and proceed further with the selection process.

A division bench comprising Justices K.K. Sasidharan and P.D. Audikesavalu said the entire exercise relating to selection, including the issuance of orders of appointment by the government should be completed by April 30, 2019.

Originally, the board received 1, 70, 366 applications as against the notified vacancies of 1,058. The board conducted the written examination on September 16, 2017 and it was attended by 1, 33, 568 candidates. The board after retaining the original OMR Sheets in its safe custody took scanned copies and it was handed over to a private agency for evaluation.

It was found that some of employees of the private agency colluded with 196 candidates and corrected the marks in the scanned images of the OMR Sheets.

The outsourcing agency submitted the report of evaluation to the board. The board thereafter invited 2,109 candidates for certificate verification.

While so, the board received complaints regarding malpractices that took place during the process of evaluation. Thereafter, the board discontinued the certificate verification. On February 8, 2018 the board took a decision to cancel the entire competitive examination.

Aggrieved, petitions were filed before the Madurai Bench, which allowed the petitions. Another batch of petitions were filed before the Principal Bench, which dismissed the same. Challenging the same, the present appeals were filed.

The bench said it was the consistent case of the board and the police that only the scanned images were forwarded to the outsourcing agency. The records were tampered with only in respect of the 196 scanned copies.

There was no corresponding alteration in respect of the original OMR Sheets. In fact, the board succeeded in verifying the manipulation only by comparing the original OMR Sheets with the scanned copies.

The investigation conducted by the police also revealed that only the scanned images were subjected to alteration and it was also confined to 196 OMR Sheets alone, the bench added.

The bench said the board without making any attempt to separate the tainted from non-tainted, abruptly cancelled the entire selection.

In fact, the certificate verification was done partly and it was only at that point of time certain reports appeared with regard to the alteration of marks in the scanned images of the OMR Sheets. The board on apprehension that its name would also be tarnished immediately cancelled the entire selection process without considering the case of the candidates, who were not party to any such malpractices. When it was possible to separate the tainted candidates from the non-tainted, the board was not correct in cancelling the examination and the entire selection, the bench added.

The bench said, “We are of the considered view that the single judge at Madurai bench was correct in the finding that the board should have segregated the tainted candidates from non-tainted candidates and proceeded with the selection process, instead of cancelling the entire examination. The single judge at the Principal bench was not justified in taking a view contrary to the view taken by a Coordinate bench in the very same subject matter”.