The Telangana Public Service Commission (TGPSC) recruitment exams seem to have found themselves in fresh controversy. Now, aspirants of the Group-1 posts allege discrepancies in the Mains exam results.
To recall, the Group-1 Mains were conducted from October 21 to October 27, 2024, with the results being declared on March 10th 2025.
The exam was initially held in October 2022, but allegations of a large-scale paper leak led to its cancellation. The controversy also sparked statewide protests from aspirants.
According to aspirants, the TGPSC has awarded candidates marks in an arbitrary way, and not based on their answers. They allege that Telugu and other language medium candidates have been awarded fewer marks than English medium candidates.
“It’s like the commission has already cast non-English medium students as inferior and having low intellect. There is no other explanation for why bright Telugu medium candidates, who prepared for the exam earnestly and diligently, scored low,” an aspirant told EdexLive, on the condition of anonymity.
“Telugu medium candidates were not among the top 500, or even the top 800 performers of the exam,” they lament.
They further add that candidates received very good scores in certain subjects and negligible marks in the rest — which does not make sense, as no candidate could have such contrasting scores in different subjects.
“A Telugu medium candidate who authored a book on the Telangana Movement (for statehood) only scored 14 marks in the History paper. Something is clearly amiss,” they say.
The aspirant adds that candidates above the age of 30 were also awarded low marks.
These discrepancies have led candidates to believe that they are not incidental, and rather, part of a larger plot of malpractice.
Another candidate, who also requested to be kept anonymous, alleged patterns in the ranking scheme, where candidates with consecutive roll numbers were awarded marks with a difference of 0.5, 1 or 2 marks.
“For example, a candidate with a hall ticket number ending in 366 got 436 marks, and the candidate after them, whose hall ticket ended in 367, got 438 marks. In another instance, the candidate with a roll number ending in 732 got 425 marks, and the candidate after them got 425.5 marks. Were these candidates’ answer sheets evaluated, or were they awarded marks at random?” they question.
Further, they allege that a majority of the top-scoring candidates were from the same exam centres (18 and 19 in Koti Women's College, Hyderabad).
“There were 40 centres in the state, and the Koti Women’s College had two exam halls. Among the top 500 performers in the exam, most of them were from these two centres,” they claim. They add that rumours of posts being purchased are running rampant among candidates due to these patterns.
Raising awareness of these discrepancies, and seeking relief for the candidates is a loosely organised Joint Action Committee (JAC), that has been holding press conferences at various press clubs in the city, and planning to organise gatherings on the issue.
“It seems like no political party or institution wants to listen to TGPSC aspirants at this point. They all seem to have arrived at a joint compromise to not take up our issue,” the aspirant says.
They add that the JAC further plans to petition the Telangana High Court, seeking to request a review of the scores to weed out malpractices, if any.
