MADURAI: A TNPSC candidate lost her opportunity of getting into Group-II services after she wrote ‘Jai Hind’ in the concluding portion of one of her answers. Nine years later, the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court gave her another chance by directing the TNPSC to evaluate her answer paper and appoint her if she scores the required marks.
The order was passed by Justice Battu Devanand, on a petition filed by the candidate, M Kalpana, in 2017. Kalpana’s answer paper for the Part-B written examination held in 2014 for TNPSC Group-II services recruitment was declared invalid by the TNPSC. The reason cited by the commission was that she ended her essay with the remark “Jai Hind, Let us live united with nature.”
While Kalpana claimed that her answer was relevant to the question, the commission contended that she violated the instructions given to candidates in para 8 and 16(iii) of the answer book that candidates should not write irrelevant or impertinent remarks indicating their identity to the examiner.
Kalpana came to know the reason for her disqualification only in December 2016, when she was finally served with the explanation in response to her RTI application. Having secured 160 marks in Part-A paper and 24 marks in the interview, she needed only six marks to become eligible.
Justice Devanand opined that the commission ought to have considered the entire essay was written by the petitioner before treating the remark as ‘impertinent’. He also pointed out that “Jai Hind” or “Victory to India” is the most commonly uttered slogan in India, whether it is at the end of the school prayers by children or at the end of a speech by eminent persons. TNPSC was ordered to comply with the directions within a month.