The Madras High Court on Monday directed the Commissioner of Police, Chennai city, to conduct a thorough probe into allegations of large-scale malpractice in the main written examinations conducted by the Tamil Nadu Public Service Commission (TNPSC) for Group-I services in July, 2016.
Justice S.M. Subramaniam passed the interim order on a writ petition filed by 27-year-old transgender S. Swapna of Madurai. Relying on a news story telecast by a Tamil news television channel on the issue, the petitioner had claimed that she would have got selected if the process had been fair and transparent.
During the course of arguments, Additional Advocate General C. Manishankar informed the court that a First Information Report had already been registered on the basis of a complaint lodged by the television channel which had reportedly received certain incriminating documents from anonymous sources. The City Crime Branch police was investigating the case at present, he said.
Explaining the modus operandi of the alleged malpractice, the petitioner’s counsel M. Purushothaman claimed that unanswered blank sheets had been removed from some of the answer booklets after the examinations were over and those sheets were inserted back after the candidates filled them up with the correct answers.
Further, stating that the evaluators had mentioned the marks only in separate OMR valuation sheets and not for individual answers on the answer scripts, the counsel contended that such a procedure adopted by the TNPSC raised suspicion over the genuineness of the examinations.
However, the TNPSC counsel denied any kind of irregularity in the selection process. After hearing both sides, the judge adjourned the case to September 11 for further consideration.
