VIJAYAWADA: The High Court on Friday reserved its judgment on a batch of appeals concerning the APPSC Group-1 Mains examinations. The Division Bench, comprising Justices Battu Devanand and Hariharanath Sharma, directed all parties to submit written arguments, if any, by Monday.
The dispute originates from the 2018 Group-1 notification. Allegations of widespread irregularities in the evaluation of answer sheets led a Single Judge to annul the APPSC’s selection list, which had been released on 26 May 2022. The court ordered that the Mains be reconducted and the recruitment process completed within six months, as per its ruling dated 13 March 2024.
Challenging this decision, the APPSC and several employees who had secured appointments under the 2018 notification approached the Division Bench. Concurrently, other petitioners filed appeals contesting specific aspects of the Single Judge’s verdict.
Senior advocates Jandyala Ravi Shankar, KS Murthy, Shaik Saleem and Jonnalagadda Sudhir, representing unsuccessful candidates, argued that 62 per cent of those selected through digital evaluation failed in subsequent manual evaluation. They further contended that candidates from Telugu-medium backgrounds were disproportionately affected.
Advocate General Dammalapati Srinivas, appearing for the APPSC, responded that candidates whose answer sheets displayed inconsistent handwriting were disqualified.
He stated that a committee had been formed to investigate the handwriting discrepancies and that its report would be submitted to the court. He also noted that appointed candidates had provided undertakings to comply with the court’s final decision, and clarified that no CCTV footage was available from the Highland evaluation centre.
Representing selected candidates, senior advocates CV Mohan Reddy and P Sriraghuram argued that there was no evidence to confirm that an evaluation had taken place at the Highland venue.
With arguments concluded over two days, the Bench reserved its verdict.