HC direcs Teachers Recrutiment Board to give one mark

: The Madras High Court has directed Teachers Recruitment Board to award one mark to candidates who answered either one of two options to a question in 'D' series and in the other series for the question in the Tamil Nadu Special Teacher Eligibility Test in May this year.
The matter pertains to candidates who have answered either option (B) or (D) to question No.33 in 'D' series and in the other series for the question.
Justice S Nagamuthu, who gave the direction on June 25 last, also directed TRB to revalue all answer papers by making the above modification in the key answers and then publish within a week, the revised result.

He was allowing a petition from one P Easwari,who took the special test for persons with disability (PWD) candidates as per a May 21 notification. The question in dispute directed candidates to select the word which does not indicate the sea alone, from four given answers
TRB contended 'Aazhi' was the correct answer as it meant sea, ring and wheel.But the petitioner said 'Samuthiram' was also correct as it had three different meanings like 'ocean', 'a big number followed by 14 zeros' and 'in abundance'.
She also cited the Lexicon published by the University of Madras and Tamil dictionary 'Tamizh Agara Mudali' and one by Saradha Publishers. Hence, she was entitled to one more mark, she claimed.

However, experts in Tamil who were present in court, submitted that the word 'Samuthiram' is not a Tamil word and was not the correct answer.
The judge pointed out that the question does not ask candidates to find out if the word 'Samuthiram' is a Tamil word or not. He was also not prepared to accept the contention that the word was not Tamil. Had it been so, it would not have been included in the Tamil dictionaries.
"Demonstrably, the Tamil word 'Samuthiram' carried meanings of three different objects and therefore, applying the law laid down by the Supreme Court in Kanpur University's case, for those candidates who have answered option (D) also, one mark should be awarded," the judge said.