Hyderabad:The Telangana High Court on Wednesday refused to interdict or postpone a Group-I mains examination scheduled to commence on October 21. A division bench, headed by Justice Sujoy Paul, was dealing with a batch of writ pleas filed by various aspirants to Group-I services.
They termed the notification as unconstitutional. Senior counsel E. Madan Mohan pointed out that the impugned government order that fixed the ratio at 1:50 for inviting candidates to the written examination was an indirect method to eat into the number of posts in the reserved category. It was, he said, an attempt to effectively reduce reservations.
Senior counsel K.G. Krishna Murthy pointed out that the earlier government order envisaged that candidates called for the written examination must be on category-wise basis and there was no reason why the same had to be altered by the government.
Senior counsel L. Ravichander pointed out the discrepancies, stating that the reservations in favour of persons with disabilities could not be vertical. He also pointed out that the total reservation was past the 50 per cent Lakshman Rekha and was now at an alarming 63 per cent.
Shorn of legalities, Ravichander said, the examination was visited with multiple illegalities and constitutional violations.
S. Rahul Reddy, representing the state, faulted “casual pleading” in the writ petitions and said that the petitions were not entitled to any relief. The panel, after hearing all the parties, said, “We are only inclined to direct that any selection made hereafter shall remain subject to the final outcome of the matter.”
The panel granted seven days’ to file counter and the rejoinder (if any) to be filed within ten days therefrom and posted the matter for final hearing to November 20.
