Vijayawada The Andhra Pradesh High Court has been told that the Special Investigation Team (SIT) found no deliberate fraud or illegality in the selection process for the Andhra Pradesh Public Service Commission (APPSC) Group-1 Mains examination. Counsel representing the selected candidates submitted that the investigation had only pointed to administrative lapses and violations of procedure. They argued that such deficiencies cannot justify scrapping the entire recruitment process.
On Tuesday, during the fifth day of final hearings, senior advocate Surendra Rao and advocate Shiva Santhosh made submissions before a division bench comprising Justice Donadi Ramesh and Justice A Hariharanadha Sarma. They argued that minor administrative deficiencies could not be used against candidates who had successfully cleared the selection process without any alleged wrongdoing on their part.
The lawyers specifically referred to the SIT report and submitted that it contained no finding indicating that the selected candidates had received any undue benefit or that the recruitment process had been conducted through fraud. According to the defence, no direct link had been established between the procedural mistakes committed by officials and any alleged benefit to the selected candidates.
The defence also raised the issue of manual evaluation of answer scripts in Vijayawada. The lawyers told the court that the manual evaluation in Vijayawada was carried out pursuant to an official decision taken by then APPSC Chairman Gautam Sawang. They argued that selected candidates should not be held responsible for administrative decisions taken by officials.
The lawyers submitted that cancelling the entire selection process because of procedural lapses by officials would cause serious prejudice to candidates who had no role in those lapses. They urged the court not to make selected candidates “scapegoats” for administrative errors and argued that the recruitment should not be scrapped merely because of procedural deficiencies.
During the hearing, APPSC Standing Counsel GVL Murthy made submissions regarding the commission’s records. He informed the division bench that the commission had no official records showing who had initially taken the decision to conduct evaluation of answer scripts at the Haailand resort. There were also no official records documenting the subsequent decision to cancel the Haailand valuation process.
After hearing the submissions from the parties, the division bench adjourned further proceedings in the batch of writ appeals concerning the Group-1 Mains examination until October 12.
The legal dispute stems from an order passed by a single-judge bench on March 13, 2024. The court had set aside the Group-1 Mains examination results, citing alleged irregularities in the manual evaluation of answer scripts, and directed APPSC to conduct fresh examinations.
The division bench is now considering whether the administrative and procedural lapses identified during the investigation are sufficient to invalidate the entire recruitment process or whether accountability should instead be fixed for the officials responsible for the lapses while protecting the interests of candidates who were selected without any alleged wrongdoing. The matter will be heard next on October 12.
