Alteration of recruitment standards post-process violates constitutional fairness prohibitions under Articles 14 and 16.

ORDER:

NAGESH BHEEMAPAKA, J.

Petitioners filed this Writ Petition to declare the result notification for interviews dated 21.06.2019 in respect of Notification Nos. 20/2015 and 17/2016 issued by the 2^nd respondent – Telangana State Public Service Commission as arbitrary, illegal and contrary to even the Division Bench judgment in Writ Appeal No. 1525 of 2018 and batch and by nullifying the same, direct preparation of fresh list by deleting all those OMRs. where Part – B was tampered / scratched/erased/whitenered or otherwise dealt with.

2. The case of petitioners is that the 2nd respondent, in exercise of its powers as the recruiting authority, had issued Notification No.20/2015 dated 30.12.2015 inviting Applications for recruitment to various posts under Group-II Services. Subsequently, Supplementary Notification No.17/2016 dated 01.09.2016 was issued, adding further vacancies, thereby bringing the total number of notified posts to 1032 across thirteen categories of posts. Petitioners, being eligible and qualified candidates belonging to BC category, applied for the said posts and participated in the written examination. Though one of the petitioners found place in the selection list, remaining petitioners, despite being more meritorious, were pushed downward in the final merit list due to the unlawful inclusion of candidates whose OMR sheets were tainted and who had violated the explicit examination instructions prescribed by Telangana State Public Service Commission itself.

2.1. The issue relating to conduct of recruitment process and evaluation of OMR sheets pursuant to Notification Nos. 20/2015 and 17/2016 had earlier been the subject matter of detailed adjudication before this Court in Writ Petition No.18834 of 2017 filed by one Sri V. Ramachandra Reddy and others. The said Writ Petition questioned the inclusion of candidates, who had committed violations such as wrong bubbling, double bubbling, non-bubbling, use of whiteners or erasers, or tampering of OMR sheets. After an elaborate hearing and detailed analysis of the record, by a well-reasoned judgment, this Court, while upholding the validity of recruitment notification itself, issued comprehensive and binding directions to State Public Service Commission to ensure fairness, transparency and accountability in the recruitment process. It was further held that all the candidates who had tampered or used whiteners or erasers on their OMR sheets were liable to be excluded from further consideration and directed the Commission to physically verify such OMR sheets to ensure that only eligible candidates were retained for the process of certificate verification and interview. The operative portion of the order Writ Petition No.18834 of 2017 is extracted hereunder for ready reference:

"100. CONCLUSIONS:

1. There is no infirmity in the selection process to conduct recruitment to Group II service pursuant to recruitment notification No.20 of 2015 dated 30.12.2015, per se to hold that selection process is vitiated. Selection process cannot be held as vitiated merely because the OMR sheets of few candidates who have committed errors such as, wrong bubbling, no bubbling or double bubbling of the information relating to Roll number, question paper booklet number, used Whiteners/ used Erasers were evaluated. Such candidates are identifiable and can be separated. The candidates who have committed such mistakes can be excluded and rest of the selection process can be continued.

2. The candidates who have committed errors in bubbling, such as wrong bubbling, no bubbling or double bubbling of the information relating to Roll number, question paper booklet number, centre code etc used whiteners/ used Erasers, shall be excluded from consideration for certificate verif