CHENNAI: The Tamil Nadu Public Service Commission is taking all efforts to ensure that it completes the examination as announced in its annual planner. It undertakes the exercise of constituting an expert panel, collecting its report, resolving on the action to be taken, finalise the keys, evaluate answer papers of the candidates, draw the ranking list and the list of candidates to be short-listed to the next stage by keeping in mind the number of vacancies and the rule of reservation.
This Herculean task cannot be allowed to be thrown to the winds by filing a writ petition questioning the same, the Commission said in its counter filed in the Madras High Court on Monday.
The counter was filed in response to a writ petition filed by S Vignesh of West Mambalam, who wrote the preliminary exam, but was not selected for the final exam, alleging utter confusion in setting of the questions by the Commission.
He sought to quash the final key answers published by the TNPSC in its website on March 4 and the list of selected candidates provisionally admitted for main written examination in respect of posts included in the combined civil service and public exam (Group-I services) 2016-19, published by the Controller of Examinations in the website of TNPSC, on April 3 and consequently direct the TNPSC and the Controller to revise the said answer key in that list and the list of selected candidates. His interim prayer is to stay the April 3 publication and permit him to write the main exam.
The counter said that after the tentative keys were hosted on March 4 last, it had received 4,390 representations from the candidates, touching upon several questions and they were placed before an expert panel for finalisation.
After resolving the issue, the Commission began its evaluation of the primary exam papers and the results were declared on April 3. While so, the writ petition was filed raising the issues. It was liable to be dismissed as the petitioner and other candidates were given marks for six out of 10 questions. The Commission had discharged its obligation correctly in a time-bound manner and published the results of the preliminary exam on April 3, the counter said.
As regards the plea to publish the report of the expert panel in its website, the counter said that since the required materials have been given in the counter and made known to the petitioner, it need not be done so. Moreover, as per a ruling of the Supreme Court, it should not also do so, it added. The matter remains adjourned till June 19.