Agonising wait for Group-II aspirants

It has been an agonising wait for Group-II aspirants, for no fault of theirs, as the results issue drags on in the courts and a hapless Telangana State Public Service Commission (TSPSC) unable to convince groups of candidates approaching it about updates.

The 1,032 posts to be filled through two separate notifications issued in 2015 and 2016 are caught in legal wrangles after a few candidates, who committed mistakes in the exams due to confusion and ignorance, moved the court. These were the only full-fledged notification from TSPSC for non-engineering and non-agriculture candidates after the formation of Telangana.

Controversy arose right after the exam was conducted on November 11 and November 13 in 2017, when some aspirants erred in marking their personal information and others used whiteners to scratch out one option and then entered another one. Though any change on the OMR sheet is illegal as per TSPSC norms, these candidates moved the court on some technical reasons.

However, the TSPSC released the results with court’s permission and also the list of candidates selected for the interview. Interestingly, some of the candidates who had moved the court also featured in the list selected for interview.

After the results were announced, those who could not find a place in the final list also approached court, alleging TSPSC had made errors.

Aspirants say TSPSC had agreed to evaluate the OMR sheets which had discrepancies, based on a Technical Committee recommendations, deviating from its earlier practices. This emboldened several other candidates to move the court, dragging the issue further.

Candidates who are in the merit list and are sure to get a job, given their performance in the written test, are in an agonising situation. “It is so near yet so far,” says Imran Sheikh, an aspirant. “Had the TSPSC stuck to its original decision, it would have been a smooth affair,” he says. During this period, the case has seen eight Judges and two Advocate Generals, who were engaged by TSPSC. “We request TSPSC to engage private lawyers to expedite the proceedings,” he says.

“All that we want is results to be declared and we can’t be punished for the fault of a few candidates,” says Vikram Reddy, another aspirant. Some aspirants reveal that the Court appointed Lawyers Committee that went into the issue has already submitted the report, which highlighted the mistakes made by the candidates.

The report states that most of them were personal mistakes and did not arise out of confusion. “The confusion of wrong bubbling was confined to just a few centres in the entire State and it can’t hold up thousands of others waiting for the results. Its been nearly four years since our preparation started and the wait is agonising,” say some aspirants.

“Candidates who could not find a place in the merit list are arguing that a re-exam must be conducted. This is injustice to candidates who worked hard all these years.

The issue is just technical and there was no paper leak, in which case there is no need for a re-exam,” argue the aspirants.