Madras HC: Cancellation of polytechnic lecturers recruitment upheld

Justice SM Subramaniam who dismissed a batch of petitions challenging the cancellation of recruitment process said, “This Court has carefully gone through the confidential report submitted by the State. It is pertinent to note that several money transactions were found, and the outsourcing company has tampered the hard discs and the original OMR Sheets.”

Noting that investigation has revealed conspiracies to commit such malpractices and several lakhs were paid to the agency by some candidates ranging from Rs 25 lakh to Rs 48 lakh, the judge said, “While considering the scenario and the statement and reports submitted, this court is able to come to a conclusion that large-scale malpractices and corrupt activities had crept into the selection process.”

The matter relates to the selection of lecturers in Government Polytechnic Colleges for 2017-18. For the 1,058 vacancies notified over 1.70 Lakh applications were received. Written examination was held on September 16, 2017, in which around 1, 33 lakh candidates appeared. Of them, a total of 2,110 candidates (Engineering 1391 and Non-Engineering -719) were called for certificate verification for engineering subjects.

At that juncture, the Teachers Recruitment Board found discrepancies and specific fraud in respect of 196 candidates. TRB on lodging a complaint with the Cyber Crime Cell issued a notification cancelling the selection process.

Following this, writ petitions were filed challenging the cancellation. However, Justice Subramaniam said, “This court is of a strong opinion that it is impracticable either for the investigating officials or for the appointing authorities to proceed with such a process of segregation in a prompt and correct manner. In the event of segregation, it will pave way for more litigations before the court.”

The judge further said, “This court does not find any infirmity in respect of the decision taken by the Government. Further notification has also been issued to conduct fresh selection in August 2018. Hence the court does not find any irregularity in the decision taken by the authorities for cancellation of the selection and to proceed with a fresh selection.”