The Andhra Pradesh Public Service Commission has erred in implementing the reservation rule in the selection of junior lecturers in Chief Minister N. Kiran Kumar Reddy’s native Chittoor district. To cover up, the commission recommended to the Board of Intermediate Education that it create supernumerary posts to accommodate candidates who wrongly made it to the selection list.
Inquiries by this newspaper revealed that the rule of reservation was incorrectly implemented in selecting English lecturers in Zone IV, which consists of Chittoor, Anantapur, Kadapa and Kurnool districts. Of the 95 available posts in English across the state, 39 fell in Zone IV. According to the rules, the combined merit list must be prepared first and candidates must make it to the list by virtue of their performance in the entrance examination and not on the basis of their caste.
The courts have upheld this rule in several cases. As a result, more reserved candidates who were way down the list will get jobs in the respective quota of Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Backward Classes. Sources said that while preparing the roster, the APPSC accommodated a female candidate who secured 316 marks in BC-C category and placed another female candidate belonging to Other Category (OC) above the former, though she secured less marks of 311.
“As the lone lecturer post reserved for BC-C category was filled by a female candidate who secured 316 marks, another male candidate belonging to BC-C, who secured 312 marks missed the selection,” sources said. If the APPSC had followed the rules, the female candidate with better marks would get the post in the combined merit list and the male candidate will get the post in the BC-C quota, sources added.
“We noticed the wrong implementation of the rule of reservation and sorted out the issue by asking Board of Intermediate Education to create supernumerary post and adjust all the candidates,” APPSC in-charge secretary S. Jagannatha Rao told this newspaper. A similar error was noticed in the selection of Hindi lecturers in one of the zones, Mr Rao said, adding that supernumerary posts will be created in this category also.