1 week Ago By TG Naidu
HYDERABAD: The Telangana High Court on Friday cleared the way for the TGPSC to conduct the Group-I Main Examination as scheduled from October 21 to October 27, 2024 by rejecting two writ appeals seeking to overturn an order by a single judge. The single judge had refused to cancel the Group-I preliminary examination. Taking up the writ appeals, a bench of Justices Abhinandan Kumar Shavili and Laxmi Narayana Alishetty made it clear that the future of over 32,000 candidates could not be jeopardised for the sake of six petitioners.
The bench observed that more than 90% of the candidates had already downloaded their hall tickets, and postponing the examination at this late stage would cause unnecessary disruption. The bench also noted that two of the petitioners had already qualified for the main examination. The bench recounted the earlier cancellations of the Group-I preliminary examination due to issues such as a question paper leak and lack of biometric verification and concluded that further delays would cause irreparable harm to unemployed youth waiting to take the test.
Justice Pulla Karthik, the single judge, had rightly dismissed earlier petitions to cancel the exam, the bench stated. The high court bench criticised the petitioners for challenging the notification for the examination only after the results of the preliminary exam were declared. The judges asserted that participants in the selection process could not challenge it after being unsuccessful.
Addressing the petitioners’ concerns about six wrong questions in the exam, the bench made it clear that such issues were within the purview of the Expert Committee, which had already reviewed and released the final key. The court ruled that it would not delve into the details of the examination questions. Justice Shavili underscored that the examination schedule, published in February 2024, had already set out the timeline for both preliminary and main exams.
The postponement of the main exam, set to begin in just two days, was deemed out of the question. The bench also rejected the petitioners’ claim that the TGPSC had improperly accepted applications after the official deadline, acknowledging that the extension was due to a technical glitch. The writ appeals were filed by Satta Shekhar and others, and Damodar Reddy and others.
Group-I aspirants on Friday knocked the doors of Supreme Court opposing the reservation pattern prescribed in GO29. The apex court is likely to take up the hearing on Monday. The petitioners urged the Supreme Court to postpone the Group-I mains examination till the GO 29 is scrapped.
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