Hyd HC stays Telangana SPSC selection process over complaints of irregularities

The Hyderabad High Court on Monday stayed the ongoing selection process by Telangana State Public Service Commission (TSPSC) for filling up 1,032 Group 2 posts, after several complaints of irregularities.

The court was hearing two petitions which were reportedly filed by V Ramachandra Reddy and 14 others as well as P Sricharandas Goswami and 20 other graduates, who had appeared for the written test.

The petitioners have alleged mismanagement in the selection process.

The TSPSC has violated several rules, such as the objective-type test was conducted through OMR (optical mark reader), which involves evaluation only by computers.

The petitioners also alleged that the TSPSC has corrected thousands of papers manually with selfish motives.

According to Times of India, it was alleged that several candidates had violated guidelines by using whiteners and erasers while answering the questions on the OMR sheets.

“Ten persons came to the court earlier contending that they had used whiteners in the answer sheets and hence they wanted the TSPSC not to disqualify them. But, at that time, the TSPSC clarified that such papers will not be evaluated. The court also rejected their plea on April 24. Surprisingly, now the names of those who had earlier approached the court are in the merit list, which indicates that large scale irregularities occurred in the recruiting process,” the petitioners were quoted as saying by The New Indian Express.

This came after several students have been protesting against the recruitment process.

“Many students had submitted grievances regarding the mismatch of barcodes on their OMR sheet and the question paper. Ranks have been released with consecutive hall ticket numbers in sequential order which never happens in a competitive exam. There should be more transparency in the process and the court stay will yield some answers,” Yella Swamy, a student of Osmania University told Deccan Chronicle.

In November, nearly 7.89 lakh candidates applied for the Group-II examination and 5.17 lakh candidates appeared for the exam. A technical committee was formed by TSPSC as some candidates had made certain corrections while filling up/bubbling in OMR after confusion prevailed in certain examination centres regarding matching of OMR and Question Booklets, reported The Hindu.

Meanwhile, Congress has accused the TSPSC of allowing “mass copying” at various centres.

The High Court has now directed the TSPSC to file its counter to the issues raised by the petitioners and has posted the case for July.