The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court on Thursday set aside the recent decision of the Teachers’ Recruitment Board (TRB) to cancel the examination conducted for the direct recruitment of lecturers in government polytechnic colleges.
The TRB had cancelled the examination conducted in September 2017 after allegations surfaced that the optical mark recognition sheets were tampered with during evaluation. The TRB had assigned the task of evaluation to a private agency.
Justice G. R. Swaminathan observed that the fraud [tampering with marks] had crept in only at the evaluation stage. No such tampering was made during the preliminary stage and the examination was conducted in a fair manner. The court observed that the stages of the recruitment examination could be segregated. The TRB, which was in possession of the original mark sheets, could identify and segregate the tainted candidates from the rest and conduct the selection process.
Senior counsel M. Ajmal Khan, representing the petitioner, argued that the decision to cancel the exam was arbitrary and unjust. Over a lakh students appeared for the exam and discrepancies were found only with regard to around 200 candidates. As a result, the other candidates should not be made to suffer, he said.
The petitioner, M. Illamathi of Sivaganga, who had applied for the post of Lecturer (Mathematics), had moved the High Court seeking to quash the order for the cancellation of the examination. He contended that no reason was given for the cancellation by the TRB. He contented that the cancellation was unwarranted and efforts taken by candidates like him would go futile. He added that only copies of answer sheets were sent for evaluation to the private agency, at which juncture the data were tampered with. The original sheets were retained by the TRB, he said.
