Stop assistant professor recruitment, probe anomalies first, CPI tells TN goverment 

CHENNAI: CPI on Sunday demanded an inquiry into alleged irregularities in the evaluation of answer scripts for the recruitment of 2,708 assistant professors in government colleges and urged the Tamil Nadu government to suspend the appointment process until the investigation is completed.

In a statement, CPI State secretary M Veerapandian alleged that the results released by the Teachers Recruitment Board (TRB) pointed to serious anomalies in the evaluation process. The recruitment examination, held on December 27 last year, was taken by 42,064 candidates. While results for five subjects were announced in February, the remaining results were released on Friday.

Veerapandian claimed that several candidates who had scored 111 out of 150 marks in the subject-specific objective section of the examination had been awarded zero marks in the descriptive paper. "It is impossible to believe that candidates who demonstrated such a high level of subject knowledge could score zero in an essay after choosing a topic of their preference," he said.

He argued that even a minimally relevant answer should have secured some marks and questioned how candidates with doctoral qualifications could have been awarded zero. He also alleged that while candidates with high scores in the objective paper had received zero in the essay section, others with lower objective scores had secured up to 98% marks in the descriptive paper.

Calling the pattern "highly suspicious", Veerapandian said the discrepancies appeared to indicate a deliberate manipulation of marks rather than isolated evaluation errors.

Stating that assistant professors were being recruited to government colleges for the first time in 12 years, he said thousands of aspirants had appeared for the examination expecting a fair and transparent selection process. "Their trust has been betrayed," he said.