1. The Teachers Recruitment Board (TRB), the respondent herein, has issued an advertisement in Advt.No.03/2012, dated 28.02.2012, inviting applications from eligible candidates for direct recruitment to various vacancies for the year 2011-2012, in the post of Post Graduate Assistants / Physical Education Directors Gr.1 in the Tamil Nadu Higher Secondary Educational Services.

2. The qualification prescribed as per the said Notification for the post of Post Graduate Assistant is that the candidates should possess M.A./M.Sc./M.Com. in the relevant subject with B.Ed. As per G.O.Ms.No.361, School Education Department, dated 31.12.1999, the candidates should have studied the same subject in Bachelor's Degree and Master's Degree, both for academic subjects and Languages.

3. As per the scheme of the examination, the written examination consists of a single paper of three hours duration with 150 marks. The question paper is of objective type with multiple-choice questions. The marks allotted to the main subject, Educational Methodology and General knowledge are 110 marks, 30 marks and 10 marks respectively. Based on the written examination, the candidates will be short-listed for certificate verification and finally the results will be published through press/media. If more than one candidate secures the lowest or same cut-off mark for the particular communal turn, all such candidates will be called for certificate verification and so the number of candidates called for certificate verification will be slightly higher than the number of vacancies.

4. At the time of certificate verification, weightage marks will be awarded to the short listed candidates and added to the written examination marks for preparing the final merit-cum-communal selection list. The provisional list of candidates selected for appointment after certification verification and after addition of weightage marks will be published in the Notice Board and thereafter, appointment orders will be issued by the Department concerned to which the candidates are provisionally selected.

5. The petitioners in these writ petitions have applied for Post Graduate Assistant Posts in various subjects as detailed below:-

6. The following writ petitions, more or less similar in nature, filed before the Madurai Bench of this Court, have been transferred to this Court and they were also heard along with the above writ petitions.

7. In these writ petitions, the petitioners have, inter alia, challenged the method of selection as per reservation for various categories and the Key Answers for many questions. For the sake of convenience, let us, first take up the issues relating to reservation, followed by the challenges relating to key answers.

RESERVATION

8. The crux of the issue is that the selection has not been done strictly adhering to the Rules of Reservation. To decide this issue, we need to have a birds eye view of the concept of reservation and its working.

9. Reservation, as a concept, is very wide. It is necessary for transcending caste and not perpetuating the same. Different people understand the concept to mean different things. But, in essence, it is a devise to maintain the equilibrium between “justice to backwards”, “equity for the forwards” and “efficiency for the entire system”. Thus, these are like three sides of a triangle. The concept of reservation finds its roots, post Constitution, in the communal G.O. passed by the Madras State which landed in the Hon'ble Supreme Court in State of Madras Vs. Champakam Dorairajan reported in AIR 1951 SC 226. The voyage did not stop. The subsequent years saw a lot of laws made, providing reservation in public employment. Even, the Constitution had to undergo amendments. The Hon'ble Supreme Court was frequently engaged in examining the issues relating to reservation more particularly, its implementation resulting in number of authoritative pronouncements on various aspects of the concept. For the purpose of our discus