Justice Nagesh Bheemapaka of Telangana High Court on Monday imposed costs of ₹20,000 on 17 persons who filed a writ petition seeking re-evaluation of their answer scripts of Group-I services mains examination.
The judge directed the Registrar (Judicial) of the HC to initiate prosecution against the petitioners for falsely deposing on oath about marks obtained by one candidate in the mains examination. The costs should be paid to the Court Masters and Personal Secretaries to the Honourable Judges Association, the judge said in his order.
The petitioners contended that the evaluation of answer sheets of the Group-I mains examination was biased, opaque and procedurally flawed. Claiming that such evaluation was violative of Articles 14, 16 and 21 of the Constitution, the petitioners requested to the Bench to instruct the Telangana State Public Service Commission to re-evaluate the mains papers.
To substantiate their claims, they had mentioned in the writ petition that one candidate with hall ticket no 240920176 originally got 329.5 marks but the same got reduced to 192.5 marks after re-evaluation/recounting. TGPSC standing counsel Rajashekhar informed the Bench that the candidate with the said hall ticket number was not among the petitioners.
The candidate with the said hall ticket number did not approach the HC complaining about reduction in marks. He did not complain with the TGPSC either. It was improbable that such an irregularity would go unchallenged by the candidate, Mr. Rajashekhar argued.
The judge observed that the petitioners presented a fabricated document and falsely averred based on such document. The truth behind the fabrication would eventually found out after due inquiry, the judge said in the order.
Published – April 28, 2025 10:20 pm IST
