MADURAI: On a day a TOI report mentioned the department of posts’ decision to scrap regional languages, and to keep only Hindi and English, for its recruitment examinations, the Madras high court stepped in and restrained the department from publishing results of its examinations scheduled for Sunday (July 14).
Holding a special, late-evening sitting on Saturday, a division bench of Justice K Ravichandrabaabu and Justice R Mahadevan issued the interim order of injunction, and also directed the Centre to explain why regional languages were excluded. The case was adjourned to July 19 for further hearing. The issue was taken to the court by I Aseervatham, state coordinator of People’s Watch, an NGO.
On Saturday, TOI’s front page news report “Centre drops Tamil, postal jobs test now only in English, Hindi” spoke of how the postal department had amended a notification dated May 10, 2019 and replaced it with a new notification on July 11, restricting the language of question papers to English and Hindi.
The petitioner stated that this amendment came a mere three days before the date of examination and that it was not publicised widely. Till last year, candidates were allowed to take the examinations in any of the 15 official languages, including Tamil.
The petitioner pointed out that the recruitment had been called for filling the posts of multi-tasking staff, postman, mail guard, postal assistant and sorting assistants. “The post of gramin dak sevak requires an educational qualification of passing Class X and Class XII. It would be unfair for a person of having only this qualification to write examinations only in English or Hindi as majority of the applicants would have studied only in schools where medium of instructions is the local language,” the petitioner said.
The last-minute change in the medium would adversely affect thousands of applicants who would be deprived of an employment opportunity, he said, adding that the original choice of any local language should be restored and the proposed examination on July 14 should be stayed.
In this regard, the petitioner pointed out that in 2016, largescale malpractices were found in a similar examination held by the department of posts, and a large number of candidates from Haryana had scored unusually high scores in the Tamil paper. Many candidates from Maharashtra and Punjab had registered in Haryana, and they too had scored very high marks in Tamil. The issue is being probed by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).
Holding a special, late-evening sitting on Saturday, a division bench of Justice K Ravichandrabaabu and Justice R Mahadevan issued the interim order of injunction, and also directed the Centre to explain why regional languages were excluded. The case was adjourned to July 19 for further hearing. The issue was taken to the court by I Aseervatham, state coordinator of People’s Watch, an NGO.
On Saturday, TOI’s front page news report “Centre drops Tamil, postal jobs test now only in English, Hindi” spoke of how the postal department had amended a notification dated May 10, 2019 and replaced it with a new notification on July 11, restricting the language of question papers to English and Hindi.
The petitioner stated that this amendment came a mere three days before the date of examination and that it was not publicised widely. Till last year, candidates were allowed to take the examinations in any of the 15 official languages, including Tamil.
The petitioner pointed out that the recruitment had been called for filling the posts of multi-tasking staff, postman, mail guard, postal assistant and sorting assistants. “The post of gramin dak sevak requires an educational qualification of passing Class X and Class XII. It would be unfair for a person of having only this qualification to write examinations only in English or Hindi as majority of the applicants would have studied only in schools where medium of instructions is the local language,” the petitioner said.
The last-minute change in the medium would adversely affect thousands of applicants who would be deprived of an employment opportunity, he said, adding that the original choice of any local language should be restored and the proposed examination on July 14 should be stayed.
In this regard, the petitioner pointed out that in 2016, largescale malpractices were found in a similar examination held by the department of posts, and a large number of candidates from Haryana had scored unusually high scores in the Tamil paper. Many candidates from Maharashtra and Punjab had registered in Haryana, and they too had scored very high marks in Tamil. The issue is being probed by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).
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