HYDERABAD: Justice Namavarapu Rajeswara Rao of the Telangana High Court on Wednesday heard arguments of senior counsel S Niranjan Reddy, appearing for the Telangana Public Service Commission (TGPSC), in the ongoing case challenging the conduct of the Group 1 examinations.
Niranjan Reddy informed the court that nearly four lakh candidates appeared for the preliminary examination, out of which 30,000 were shortlisted for the Mains. Ultimately, 20,161 candidates were selected.
He said that unsuccessful candidates had approached the Supreme Court seeking cancellation of the examination, but the apex court refused, terming the allegations “mala fide.”
The senior counsel asserted that there was no violation of statutory rules or any systemic failure in the conduct of the exam.
The matter was adjourned to Friday for senior counsel Desai Prakash Reddy, representing selected candidates, to present his arguments.
CAT order on allocation of Shivashankar to AP upheld
A bench of the Telangana High Court, comprising Justice Abhinand Kumar Shavili and Justice Tirumala Devi, has directed the Centre to reallocate IAS officer Shivashankar to Andhra Pradesh, in line with the verdict issued by the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) on February 28, 2025.
Dismissing the appeal filed by the Centre challenging CAT’s order, the bench reaffirmed the tribunal’s stance that the cadre allocation process had disregarded critical aspects of the officer’s background.
Senior advocate PS Rajashekar, representing Shivashankar, argued that the Department of Personnel and Training had acted in violation of the Pratyush Sinha Committee guidelines on cadre allocation after the 2014 bifurcation of AP.
He stated that DoPT failed to consider multiple factors such as Shivashankar’s place of birth, education, his father’s native place and details submitted during his training period, all of which indicated strong nativity to AP.