Group-1 prelims: Aspirants challenge single judge order in HC

After the single judge refused to cancel the Group-1 preliminary examination two days back, some aspirants filed an appeal on Thursday.

The petitioners contended that the single judge had not taken into consideration the wrong questions that had appeared in the final key of the Group-1 prelims. Deletion of these wrong questions would impact the merit list and affect the petitioners’ chances of getting get into the Mains examination, scheduled to commence on October 21, they mentioned in the appeal.

The petitioners submitted that the single judge had failed to appreciate the palpably and demonstrably wrong answers in the final key that was published and the select list for purposes of writing the Mains examination based on such a key on an erroneous premise that the power of judicial review is ousted even in such cases. They said that the questions were susceptible to more than one answer and the correct option was missing.

Justice Pulla Karthik of Telangana High Court on Tuesday dismissed the two writ petitions, which contended that the preliminary test was held in violation of norms. They contended that clubbing 63 newly sanctioned posts with the originally notified 500 posts for the selection process was unconstitutional and arbitrary.

Additionally, the petitioners argued that the government’s decision to extend 10 per cent reservation for ST candidates should have been limited to the 63 newly added posts, rather than being applied to all 563 vacancies.

The second petition challenged the accuracy of the answer options provided for some questions in the preliminary test. The petitioners requested the court to direct the TGPSC to revise the answer key and reassess the list of qualified candidates.