HC refuses to stay Group-1 exams

Hyderabad: The Telangana High Court on Thursday refused to stay the Group-1 preliminary exam which is scheduled on October 16. The court made it clear that it is not appropriate to interfere at this stage since more than five lakh aspirants have already received their hall tickets for the Group-I exams.

Justice N.V. Sravan Kumar was dealing with a petition filed by five Group-1 aspirants, belonging to the ST category. The petitioners sought a direction from the HC to stay Group-1 preliminary exam on the ground that the Telangana government through GO.Ms. No. 33 (dated 30-9-2022) enhanced the reservations in educational institutions as well as state government services for the Scheduled Tribes (STs) from the existing 6% to 10%. However, the same was not being implemented in the upcoming Group-1 Examination.

The petitioner's counsel, B. Rachana Reddy, claimed that the state government purposefully failed to implement the GO. 33 granting 10% reservations to ST candidates in the Group-1 test. She contended that a total of 503 vacancies were notified by the TSPSC for Group.1 examination. As per the 6% ST reservation policy, only 31 ST applicants will benefit from the reservation. However, if the 10% reservation is extended, 50 ST candidates will benefit, failing to execute the 10% ST reservation amounts to depriving ST candidates an opportunity to avail the policy.
According to A. Sanjeev Kumar, special counsel for the government, the notification for Group-1 jobs was released in April 2022, while the GO 33 raising the ST reservation was issued on September 30, 2022. The GO 33 is therefore only effective in the future and not retrospective.

While declining to issue a stay order, the HC ordered the Chief Secretary to take into account the petitioners' arguments and resolve them before the announcement of the Group-1 Preliminary Examination results. The judge further stated in his order that the outcome of the writ petition would affect the Group.1 exams results.