₹20,000 costs imposed on petitioners seeking re-evaluation of Group-I mains scripts
Justice Nagesh Bheemapaka of Telangana High Court on Monday imposed costs of ₹20,000 on 17 persons who filed a writ petition seeking re-evaluation of their answer scripts of Group-I services mains examination.
The judge directed the Registrar (Judicial) of the HC to initiate prosecution against the petitioners for falsely deposing on oath about marks obtained by one candidate in the mains examination. The costs should be paid to the Court Masters and Personal Secretaries to the Honourable Judges Association, the judge said in his order.
The petitioners contended that the evaluation of answer sheets of the Group-I mains examination was biased, opaque and procedurally flawed. Claiming that such evaluation was violative of Articles 14, 16 and 21 of the Constitution, the petitioners requested to the Bench to instruct the Telangana State Public Service Commission to re-evaluate the mains papers.
To substantiate their claims, they had mentioned in the writ petition that one candidate with hall ticket no 240920176 originally got 329.5 marks but the same got reduced to 192.5 marks after re-evaluation/recounting. TGPSC standing counsel Rajashekhar informed the Bench that the candidate with the said hall ticket number was not among the petitioners.
The candidate with the said hall ticket number did not approach the HC complaining about reduction in marks. He did not complain with the TGPSC either. It was improbable that such an irregularity would go unchallenged by the candidate, Mr. Rajashekhar argued.
The judge observed that the petitioners presented a fabricated document and falsely averred based on such document. The truth behind the fabrication would eventually found out after due inquiry, the judge said in the order.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Scroll.in
19 minutes ago
- Scroll.in
Bangladesh will hold general elections in April 2026, announces Muhammad Yunus
Bangladesh will hold its next general election in the first half of April 2026, announced Muhammad Yunus, the head of the country's interim government, on Friday, according to The Daily Star. During a televised address on the eve of Bakri Eid, Yunus said that the Election Commission would announce the roadmaps to the polls 'at an appropriate time', reported Prothom Alo. 'The government has held discussions with all parties to organise the most free, fair, competitive and acceptable elections in history,' he was quoted as saying by The Daily Star. Following the announcement, the National Citizen Party, Bangladesh's first student-led political party established in February, said it would not object to holding the national election 'if reforms and justice are made visible to ensure a level playing field and neutrality of the administration'. 'But the reforms must be visible before the election is organised, and in line with national expectations, a Constituent Assembly election must be arranged to implement a new Constitution,' Akhter Hossen, the member secretary of the party, was quoted as saying by The Daily Star. Yunus, a Nobel laureate economist, took over as chief adviser of Bangladesh's interim government three days after Sheikh Hasina resigned as the prime minister and fled to India on August 5. Hasina fled after several weeks of widespread student-led protests against her Awami League government. She was ousted from power after being the prime minister of Bangladesh for 16 years. On Friday, Yunus said that by the time elections are held, Bangladesh will see progress in the trial against Hasina on charges of crimes against humanity. 'We want elections that will satisfy the souls of the martyrs of the uprising and bring peace to their souls,' he said. 'We want the largest number of voters, candidates and parties to participate in the next elections.' On June 1, Hasina was charged in the country's International Crimes Tribunal with crimes against humanity allegedly committed during the protests against her government in July and August. Hasina has been charged with having instigated mass killings during protests against her Awami League government.
India Today
2 hours ago
- India Today
US court declines Republican request to intervene in Pennsylvania voting dispute
The US Supreme Court passed up a chance to give politicians more power over how federal elections are conducted, declining on Friday to hear a Republican challenge to a Pennsylvania judicial decision requiring the counting of provisional ballots cast by voters who make mistakes on their mail-in justices turned away an appeal by the Republican National Committee and Republican Party of Pennsylvania of a decision by Pennsylvania's top court on provisional ballots that the plaintiffs said ran afoul of legislature-crafted voting rules, violating the US Constitution's election-related dispute returned to the Supreme Court after the justices, on the eve of the November 2024 presidential election, rejected the emergency bid by the Republicans to block tallying the provisional ballots. The Republicans objected to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court's October ruling in favour of two Butler County voters who sought to have their provisional ballots counted after their mail-in ballots were rejected during that state's 2024 presidential primary election for lacking secrecy rules in states like Pennsylvania that often play a pivotal role in determining the outcome of US presidential elections are a particularly sensitive President Donald Trump prevailed in Pennsylvania last November, but lost the state in 2020 to his Democratic predecessor Joe Biden, who won the presidency that case follows a major 2023 Supreme Court ruling that allows the justices to second-guess state courts if they undermine the power that the Constitution gives state legislatures to craft election 6-3 ruling, which upheld a North Carolina state court's decision that invalidated a Republican-drawn congressional map as unlawfully disadvantaging Democrats, also rejected a more extreme theory advanced by many Republicans and conservatives that would have removed any role of state courts and state constitutions in regulating federal ruling, however, stopped short of announcing a legal test for determining when state courts have ventured too far in "arrogating to themselves" a legislature's the Pennsylvania case, Republicans asked the Supreme Court to answer that question, contending that the state supreme court's ruling violated the Constitution's elections provisions, including that the "times, places and manner" of federal elections "shall be prescribed in each state by the legislature thereof."Provisional ballots generally protect voters from being excluded from the voting process if their eligibility is uncertain on Election Day. The vote is counted once officials confirm intervened to defend Butler County's decision not to count the ballots from these voters, saying Pennsylvania's election law does not allow provisional ballots to be counted if a mail-in ballot was received on time by a county board of intervened on the side of the voters, contending that if a mail-in ballot is defective and cannot be counted, that person has not yet voted and a provisional ballot must be divided Pennsylvania Supreme Court last October sided with the voters, saying that provisional ballots prevent double voting while protecting voters' right to have one vote action by the court was unexpected. The court had planned to release it on Monday along with its other regularly scheduled orders, but a software glitch on Friday prematurely sent email notifications concerning the court's decision in the case. "As a result, the court is issuing that order list now," said court spokesperson Patricia is not the first time the court has inadvertently disclosed action in sensitive cases. Last year, an apparent draft of a ruling in a case involving emergency abortion access in Idaho was briefly uploaded to the court's website before being taken down. That disclosure represented an embarrassment for the top US judicial body, coming two years after the draft of a blockbuster ruling rolling back abortion rights was leaked in InMust Watch IN THIS STORY#United States of America
&w=3840&q=100)
First Post
4 hours ago
- First Post
'Fake news': Amid legal setbacks, Trump wins 'Gulf of America' battle against AP
The AP sued in February after the White House restricted the news outlet's access over its decision to continue referring to the Gulf of Mexico in its coverage despite Trump renaming the body of water the Gulf of America read more President Donald Trump is free to bar The Associated Press from some White House media events for now, after a U.S. appeals court on Friday paused a lower court ruling mandating that AP journalists be given access. The divided ruling by the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit temporarily blocks an order by US District Judge Trevor McFadden, who ruled on April 8 that the Trump administration must allow AP journalists access to the Oval Office, Air Force One and White House events while the news agency's lawsuit moves forward. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD The 2-1 ruling was written by US Circuit Judge Neomi Rao, joined by fellow Trump appointee U.S. Circuit Judge Gregory Katsas. Rao wrote that the lower court injunction 'impinges on the President's independence and control over his private workspaces' and that the White House was likely to ultimately defeat the Associated Press' lawsuit. The Associated Press in a statement said it was disappointed by the decision and weighing its options. A White House spokesperson, Taylor Budowich, in a statement on the social media platform X said the Associated Press has no 'right to unfettered access to limited spaces, like the Oval Office and Air Force One.' In a dissent, Circuit Judge Cornelia Pillard, an appointee of President Barack Obama, said her two colleagues' ruling cannot be squared with 'any sensible understanding of the role of a free press in our constitutional democracy.' The AP sued in February after the White House restricted the news outlet's access over its decision to continue referring to the Gulf of Mexico in its coverage despite Trump renaming the body of water the Gulf of America. The AP's lawyers argued the new policy violated the First Amendment of the Constitution, which protects free speech rights. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD McFadden, who was appointed by Trump during his first term, said in his ruling that if the White House opens its doors to some journalists it cannot exclude others based on their viewpoints. Trump administration lawyers said the president has absolute discretion over media access to the White House and that McFadden's ruling infringed on his ability to decide whom to admit to sensitive spaces. 'The Constitution does not prohibit the President from considering a journalist's prior coverage in evaluating how much access he will grant that journalist,' lawyers for the administration said in a court filing. On April 16, the AP accused the Trump administration of defying the court order by continuing to exclude its journalists from some events and then limiting access to Trump for all news wires, including Reuters and Bloomberg. Reuters and the AP both issued statements denouncing the new policy, which puts wire services in a larger rotation with about 30 other newspaper and print outlets. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Other media customers, including local news organizations that have no presence in Washington, rely on the wire services' real-time reports of presidential statements as do global financial markets. The AP says in its stylebook that the Gulf of Mexico has carried that name for more than 400 years and, as a global news agency, the AP will refer to it by its original name while acknowledging the new name Trump has chosen.
