Group 1: High court dismisses pleas of candidates, clears way for exams

Hyderabad: Stating that it cannot precipitate matters at the last minute and further bring down the sagging morale of unemployed youth already frustrated by repeated cancellation of Group-1 notifications and preliminary exams, a division bench of the Telangana high court on Friday dismissed the appeals of eight aspirants for scraping the June 2024 prelims over a few faulty questions.
The Group-1 mains exams are scheduled to begin from Oct 21. "Of the eight aspirants, two qualified for mains and the exam cannot be stalled at the instance of the remaining six," a bench of Justice Abhinand Kumar Shavili and Justice Laxmi Narayana Alishetty said while agreeing with TGPSC counsel PS Rajasekhar who objected to the selective approach of the petitioners. The aspirants had filed the appeal after a single judge had earlier rejected their plea saying that an experts committee had resolved the issue.
Advocates for aspirants J Sudheer and Goda Siva said the TGPSC had continued its legacy of faulty questions and sought suspension of re-notification and also the June 2024 prelims. However, the bench pointed out that the re-notification was in Feb 2024 which was challenged in Aug 2024 and questioned the delay by the aspirants.
"The experts committee examined more than 6,000 objections over the questions and approved a final key after deleting two and awarding marks to all candidates for the deleted questions. The process of Group-1 recruitment began two years ago, two prelims have already been cancelled. This is a third effort. If we interfere with this third effort and adjourn mains also at this stage, this will lead to a state of despair among the unemployed youth," the bench said, citing the five lakh applications for the first notification for 503 jobs which fell to 3 lakh despite an increase in the notified posts to 563.
"Now as many as 31,383 aspirants ready to appear for mains. If that process is stalled now, it would cause frustration among them," the bench said and dismissed the appeals.