Teachers Recruitment Board not to hold re-examination for PG assistant candidates

         MADURAI: Teachers Recruitment Board (TRB) has decided not to conduct re-examination for the post of postgraduate (PG) assistants in Tamil. It has apprised the Madras high court's Madurai bench about the decision which will disappoint nearly one-fourth of the 31,983 candidates who had taken the examination on July 21 last year. The court, which had earlier directed TRB examination to consider conducting a fresh examination as 47 out of 150 questions in the examination were found to be wrong, will give its verdict on Wednesday.


          The additional advocate general (AAG) K Chellapandian appearing for TRB on Tuesday told the court that it is difficult to conduct a re-examination due to lack of time. On September 18, the Madurai bench had directed TRB chairman to inform it about the decision and posted the matter to September 24 for the chairman's reply. On behalf of TRB, its member secretary G Arivoli appeared at the court on Tuesday.

Of the 31,983 candidates who appeared for the examination, 8,002 were given question papers (B-series) which carried the wrong questions. Challenging the examination, two candidates - J Antony Clara, 28, of Trichy and S Vijalakshmi of Madurai - had filed writ petitions individually. Following it, the publication of the examination results was stayed by justice S Nagamuthu on September 10 after the court found that about one-third of the questions were wrong.

On Tuesday, the AAG reiterated its decision to delete 40 questions and re-evaluate the answer scripts for 110 marks. Rejecting it, the judge observed that according to the TRB's latest decision, each question will carry one-and-a-half marks, whereas its prospectus had initially set one mark for each question. The judge also rejected another proposal suggested by the TRB as not feasible. "The court has to give justice without any harm. The TRB conducts competitive examination in an irresponsible manner. About 80 questions were wrong in another examination conducted by the same TRB. Forty-seven questions are wrong in the examination under consideration," the judge observed.

The TRB had invited applications to fill up 605 vacancies for the post of PG assistants in Tamil in government schools across the state.