Madras HC reserves final orders in plea challenging 40% marks mandate in TNPSC Group 4 exam's Tamil segment

CHENNAI: The Madras High Court on Tuesday reserved its final orders on a writ appeal challenging the court's order upholding the government order (GO) mandating 40 percent marks in the Tamil eligibility-cum-scoring test in the Tamil Nadu Combined Civil Services examinations (Group 4).

The first division bench of acting Chief Justice R Mahadevan and Justice Mohammed Shaffiq heard the appeal challenging the court order.

The counsel for the appellant sought to quash GO 133 from the year 2021, which mandated 40 percent marks in the Tamil eligibility-cum-scoring test. The counsel also submitted to quash the 10 percent reservation provided for destitute widows.

However, the bench observed that the appeal is only restricted to challenging the mandate of 40 percent marks in the Tamil eligibility-cum-scoring test and refused to entertain the petitioner's submission regarding the reservation for the destitute widows.

The bench also reserved its final orders without mentioning a date for further hearing.

Some of the Group 4 candidates had moved a batch of petitions in the High Court seeking to quash the mandate to secure 40 percent marks in the Tamil eligibility test.

The counsel for the petitioners had submitted that the scheme of examination envisages writing Part-A (Tamil) and Part-B (general) papers and that the Part-B paper will be taken up for evaluation only if the candidate secures a minimum qualifying mark of 40 percent in Part-A.

The counsel had also argued that it was unreasonable to expect more than mere proficiency in Tamil, and noted that if 150 marks awarded for Part A are taken into account, it would put the petitioners at a disadvantage, as they are not as proficient in Tamil as other candidates.

After hearing the counsel, Justice GR Swaminathan had then upheld the government order mandating to secure 40 percent marks in the Tamil eligibility test and dismissed the petitions.

Aggrieved by this, the petitioners had moved the appeal.