IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT MADRAS DATED: 11-12-2025 CORAM THE HONOURABLE MR JUSTICE M.DHANDAPANI and WMP No. 5629 OF 2024 P.Ramachandran Petitioner(s)

Vs

1. The State of Tamil Nadu Rep. By Its Principal Secretary to Government, School Education Department, Secretariat, Fort St. George, Chennai 9

2.The Commissioner Directorate Of School Education, DPI Campus, College Road, Chennai 06

3.The Chairman, Teacher Recruitment Board, 4th Floor EVK Sampath Maligai, DPI Campus, College Road, Chennai 06 Respondent(s)

PRAYER; This writ petition has been filed under Article 226 of Constitution of India, seeking to issue a writ of certiorarified Mandamus, call for the records relating to the order of the 3rd respondent Na.Ka.No. 6788/ E2-S1/ 2022 dated 2.02.2024 and further to quash the said order dated 2.02.2024 of the 3rd respondent rejecting the petitioner for the post of Post Graduate Assistants/ English in School Education by awarding 98.17181 marks and consequently select and appoint the petitioner to the post of Post Graduate Assistant under BC Category by revising the mark of the petitioner to 98.799925 within a time frame to be fixed by this Honble court.

For Petitioner(s): Mr.Roshan Atiq M For Respondent(s): Mrs.Mythreye Chandru, SGP For R1 And R2 Mr.R.Neelakandan, Assisted by Mr.C.Kathiravan, SC for R3

ORDER

The writ petition has been filed seeking to quash the order of the 3rd respondent Na.Ka.No. 6788/ E2-S1/ 2022 dated 2.02.2024 and further to quash the said order dated 02.02.2024 of the 3rd respondent rejecting the petitioner for the post of Post Graduate Assistants/ English in School Education by awarding 98.17181 marks and consequently select and appoint the petitioner to the post of Post Graduate Assistant under BC Category by revising the mark of the petitioner to 98.799925 within a time frame to be fixed by this Honble court.

2. It is the case of the petitioner that the petitioner is a Post- Graduate in English Literature and also holds B.Ed. Qualification. He applied for direct recruitment to the post of P.G. Assistant (English) and he took up the examination conducted on 18.02.2023. On 09.04.2022, the respondents published tentative answer keys. On verification, the petitioner found that answers in respect of question Nos.71 and 108 in English Paper-II were not correct. Though the petitioner raised an objection and the same was not considered by the respondent. The selection list was published on 16.09.2022 and cut off marks for candidates belonging to Backward community was fixed at 98.19 marks. According to the petitioner, he secured 97.77 marks. Because of the wrong answers given to the above mentioned questions, it is the case of the petitioner, that he could not cross the cut off marks. The petitioner filed a writ petition before this Court challenging the answer key provided by the third respondents with respective question numbers 71 and 108. This court on an analysis of the entire facts, held that question number 108 was given a wrong answer and directed the respondents to award the marks to the petitioner in respect of the said question. It is the grievance of the petitioner that instead of awarding one mark for the said question, the third respondent has awarded only 0.40 marks and therefore, his result has increased very marginally to 98.17 which is little short of the cut off marks of 98.19.

3. Aggrieved by the action of the third respondent in not awarding full marks, the present writ petition has been filed.

4. The third respondent has filed a detailed counter affidavit on

22.04.2024 followed by an additional counter affidavit dated 24.03.2025. Both in the counter affidavit and in additional counter affidavit, the third respondent has narrated the methodology followed by the respondents for awarding marks. The third respondent has also extracted the calculation method adopted by the National Stock Exchange Information Technology in respect of calculation of normalised marks for multi-session papers. The coun