Punjab TET: HC awards one mark for wrong question; new merit list by June 1

The Punjab and Haryana high court has awarded one mark to all candidates for a wrong question and asked the Punjab School Education Board (PSEB) to accordingly revise the merit list of the Punjab State Teachers Eligibility Test (PSTET)-2, conducted for the masters’ cadre in December 2015.

Disposing of 33 petitions challenging answer key of the examination, the high court bench of justice GS Sandhawalia asked the PSEB to award one mark to all the candidates and revise the merit list by June 1. Earlier, the expert committee after examining the question paper had recommended change of marks in some categories, which was accepted by the board and result revised accordingly.

The high court has also stated that those who qualify as per the merit list of June 1, will be eligible to apply for the posts of masters till June 15.

The exam was challenged by candidates who had secured close to the qualifying marks and were short of marks ranging from 1 to 8 and therefore, seeking the benefit of revision of the answer key as it, they said, was not correct. Qualifying marks for general category was 90 and 82 for reserved candidates.

The exam was conducted on December 13, 2015, and the result was declared on December 23, in which 4,612 candidates qualified out of 29,477. After the answer key was challenged in the high court, an expert committee was formed in January to examine the question paper. The committee recommended award of additional marks in certain categories.

After the revision of the merit list, the number of qualified candidates rose to 5,222. With high court declaring question wrong, the revised merit list will be out by June 1.