The selection of 2,395 post-graduate assistants and physical education directors (PEDs) for government schools in the State was set aside by the Madras High Court on the ground that more than half of the key answers set by the Teachers Recruitment Board (TRB) were wrong and the reservation formula also had not been properly applied, on Monday (October 1).
Passing orders on a batch of writ petitions from the teacher-aspirants, Justice S Nagamuthu quashed the mark list and the selection list for all posts.
The judge said that a number of key answers had been set wrongly and so the valuation conducted based on the answers was invalid. The selection of candidates had not been done properly by strictly applying the rules of reservation, the judge said.
TRB advertised for the 2,395 posts on February 28 last and the three-hour objective type exam was held for the main subject, educational methodology and general knowledge carrying 110 marks, 30 marks and 10 marks, respectively.
The present batch of writ pleas were filed challenging the key answers to many questions and the faulty application of the reservation formula by the authorities. By an interim order, the court had formed an expert committee to go into the correctness of the key answers.
The panel’s report revealed that more than 50 key answers were wrong and hence evaluation based on these keys had adversely affected the prospects of thousands of aspirants. As for the reservation regime, Justice Nagamuthu said that several reserved category candidates selected under open quota on merit had been adjusted against the reserved quota.
Explaining the illegal application of quota regime, the judge pointed out that one S Selvi, a top scorer with 127 marks, had been shown as having been selected under the backward class (women) quota while the second rank-holder J Kumar with 118 marks had been ‘selected’ against the backward class (general) category, instead of being included in the open category. One Prabakaran who scored 114 marks was shown as a reserved category candidate instead of being listed as an open category candidate selected under merit/open category. In Zoology, G Jagan with 130 marks and J Mohan with 129 marks too had been selected under ‘reserved’ category’ instead of open category, the judge pointed out.
Describing the selection as ‘strange and shocking’, the judge said that it was clear that the TRB had not understood the method to be followed for selection as against open quota, vertical reservations for BCs, MBCs, SCs and STs and the horizontal reservations for women, disabled persons and Tamil medium candidates. The judge directed the TRB to redo the whole exercise and said that the lists of selected candidates already published were liable to be withdrawn. Hence, the entire selection lists, including the selected lists for the posts for which there was no challenge, were liable to be set aside.
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