The Madras High Court has directed the TNPSC to publish the marks of all candidates who appeared for the Combined Subordinate Services-I written examination (Group II) held on November 4, 2012 in its official website within four weeks.
Allowing a writ petition, Justice S.Nagamuthu did not accept the TNPSC’s stand that the marks secured by the candidates and the relevant cut-off marks would be published only after the final selection was over.
The petitioner, A.Gopikrishnan, said he appeared for the examination and as per the tentative key answers, he had calculated that he should have secured 210 marks out of 300. He was not called for the interview though some candidates who would have secured lesser marks than him were called. Since, he did not know his exact marks, he represented to the Commission to publish the marks secured by all candidates in the written exam. As it was not done, he filed the present petition seeking a direction to the TNPSC to publish his marks and call him for interview.
The TNPSC’s counsel submitted that the final selection was on. The petitioner was not called for the oral test under the SC (general) category as he had not secured the required cut-off marks.
Mr.Justice Nagamuthu said that the Commission’s stand regarding the publication of marks of candidates had been negatived by the court in a separate case.
That order was duly complied with.
In his considered opinion, in this scenario, where transparency was the hallmark of fairness on the part of the authorities concerned, there could be no justification in not publishing the marks until the final results were published. Only if the marks were made known, candidates would be in a position to know why they were not called for interview.
“When the marks can be disclosed to the individual candidates under the Right to Information Act, I do not find any reason as to why such information should be withheld without making it public thereby driving thousands of candidates to approach the respondent (Commission) under the RTI Act.” Under Art.14 of the Constitution, arbitrariness in any form should be avoided, the Judge observed.
