DSSSB Post Graduate Teachers Recruitment: Plea Before Delhi HC For Conducting Exam Afresh [Read Petition]

A petition has been filed before the Delhi High Court praying for a direction to the Delhi Subordinate Services Selection Board (DSSSB) to scrap the online exam conducted for recruitment of postgraduate teachers (PGT) in July this year, and conduct it afresh.

The petition came up on 10 September before Justice IS Mehta, who directed it to be listed on 31 October before the Roster Bench, after accepting DSSSB’s request for time to file a reply.

The Court has been approached by one Mr. Pankaj Prajapati, who had applied for the post of PGT History Male under the Directorate of Education, GNCTD. A total of 92 vacancies had been advertised for the post by the DSSSB.

He, however, alleges discrimination in conduct of the exam, pointing out that while candidates taking it offline had a chance to review their answers, those taking it online did not have an option to do so. He explains,

“…in the online mode the petitioner and same others was given 3:00 hrs time under which he was supposed to answer 300 MCQ’S, which have been divided into 15 slabs, each containing 20 questions and without answering one slab, the candidate cannot proceed to next slab because the earlier slab automatically locked and due to locking or final submission of each slab, the online mode candidate has lose their right to revise the answered questions. However on the other part there are no such situations or compulsions for the candidates who have sat in the offline mode of the examination.”

He further contends that the DSSSB had not notified the mode of examination in advance and had changed it on various dates. Such changes in the mode of the exam, he asserts, “had differentiated or unreasonably classified the candidates on the basis of the mode of conduction of examination, which was against the advertised scheme of examination and beyond the power of the respondent.”

Mr. Prajapati also informs the Court that DSSSB had also notified that a few exams would be conducted online at the examination centers located in Delhi/NCR region, and that due to infrastructural constraints, it had decided to offer multiple shifts with different sets of questions. DSSSB had further decided on undertaking normalization of marks obtained by the candidates in various shifts, in order to account for variation in difficulty levels.

“…adopting different ways of the examination for same set of the applicants, will invariably discriminate and spoil the fair and level playing field in regard of the said examination,” he then asserts.

Mr. Prajapati has further taken objection to the non-issuance of syllabus for Section II of the exam, which questions candidates with MCQs pertaining to Post-Graduation qualification and teaching methodology.

He therefore prays, “Issue a Writ of Mandamus to respondents and specifically direct the Chairman of the DSSSB, Respondent No.1. for scrapping the discriminatory online PGT Examinations as soon as possible and conduct the fresh examination through uniform mode and release the detailed syllabus for the Section II. MCQs. pertaining to the Post-Graduation qualification and teaching methodology required for the post,  in the interests of Justice.”

Read the Petition Here