Hyderabad: Nearly three-and-a-half years after the notification for recruitment to Group-2 posts was published and two-and-a-half years after the exams were conducted, the Telangana High Court allowed the Telangana State Public Service Commission to prepare the list of selected candidates.
A division bench comprising Justice V. Ramasubramanian and Justice P. Keshava Rao told the commission to follow the report of the technical committee and the recommendations of the sub-committee which were constituted to look into mistakes committed either by the candidates or the invigilators.
As per the directions of the court, the TSPSC should consider the candidates whose OMR sheets had mistakes that fell under the first and third categories that could be ignored. The commission should not evaluate the answer sheets of candidates who committed mistakes in the middle portion of the OMR sheet containing answers to 150 questions.
The technical committee had grouped the errors committed by the candidates into three categories:
i. Mistakes while filling up general information boxes with details such as roll number, question booklet number, paper code, venue code and test booklet series
ii. Mistakes like erasure, corrections, multiple bubbling or no bubbling while answering questions in the middle part of the OMR sheets
iii. Mistakes committed in the bottom part of the answer sheets where the name and signature of the candidate and the signature of the Invigilators are to be found.
Justice Ramasubramanian and Justice Keshava Rao gave the directions on writ appeals filed by some aspirants whose names had been excluded following the order of a single judge.
In October last year, the single judge had ordered that the candidates who had committed errors such as wrong bubbling, no bubbling or double bubbling of the information relating to roll number, question paper booklet number or had used whiteners and erasers could be excluded.
Aggrieved by this, some candidates filed appeals saying that the fault lay in the hands of the invigilators. They brought to the notice of the court the recommendations of the technical committee and sub-committee which was constituted by the TSPSC based on their complaints and the letters of district collectors regarding the invigilators’ fault.
Considering this, the division bench allowed the appeals and set aside some portions of the single judge order.
The notifications for Group II recruitment was released in 2015 and 2016 for 1,032 posts. The results were declared in 2017 in which 3,147 candidates were selected to be interviewed.
This did not happen as students started approaching the court in November 2016.
