Not possible to hold fresh exams for Tamil paper: TRB tells HC

Tamil Nadu Teachers Recruitment Board (TRB) has informed Madras High Court that, it is not possible to hold a fresh examination for the selection of PG Assitants (Tamil) in view of the "time factor".

The court had on 10 Sept 2013, instructed the TRB Chairman to consult with the government about the possibility of conducting a fresh examination as more than one third of the questions in the Tamil question paper, under booklet series B, contained several mistakes.

Following a petition by some candidates, it had stayed publication of the results of the written competitive examination for direct recruitment for 2012-13.

Additional Advocate General K Chellapandian said around 32,000 candidates had written the Tamil exam on July 21 and 8,000 of them were distributed the booklet series B.

He submitted that TRB had decided to delete the 40 questions that had errors and evaluate the remaining 110 questions for 150 marks by awarding one-and-a-half marks to each question, instead of one mark.

Justice Nagamuthu, however, pointed out that awarding an additional mark for the questions was against the mark scheme in the TRB prospectus.

Citing various judgements of the Supreme Court, the judge ruled that TRB cannot award grace marks to all the candidates who attempted the erroneous questions because one third of the question paper had erroneous questions and adjourned the case till September 25.

PTI