By Express News Service

CHENNAI: The Madras High Court has upheld the action of the State government in cancelling the entire process initiated by the Teachers Recruitment Board (TRB) to appoint lecturers in its polytechnic colleges.

“Corruption is a great evil spreading like cancer in the nation. It is inimical to the development activities of the government. It undoubtedly paralysed the fast development of the nation,” Justice S M Subramaniam observed while upholding the cancellation of the recruitment a fortnight ago.

“This court has carefully gone through the confidential report submitted by the State in respect of the investigation conducted. It is pertinent to note that several money transactions were found and the outsourcing company had tampered with the hard discs and the original OMR sheets. It is not only the irregularities and corrupt activities.

Now after investigation, it is found that even before the commencement of the examination, there were conspiracies to commit malpractices and corrupt activities. Thus, in the progressed investigation, the authorities found that there is a largescale malpractice and corrupt activities in respect of the process of selection, and money to the tune of `73 lakh was paid by some candidates to the agency. While considering the entire factual scenario and the statement and reports submitted, this court is able to come to a conclusion that largescale malpractices and corrupt activities had crept in the process of selection,” the judge said and upheld the cancellation of recruitment.

The matter relates to selection of lecturers in 2017-18. For 1,058 vacancies, over 1.70 lakh candidates had applied. The written examination was held on September 16, 2017, in which about 1.33 lakh candidates appeared. Totally, 2,110 candidates were called for certificate verification. At that juncture, complaints of discrepancies in evaluation of OMR sheets were noticed. The TRB found that there were certain discrepancies and more specifically, fraud in respect of 196 candidates. A complaint was also sent by some of the candidates to the Prime Minister’s office alleging that irregularities and corrupt activities were involved in selection.