Telangana Governor Dr Tamilisai Soundararajan is yet to accept the resignation of the Chairman of the Telangana State Public Service Commission (TSPSC), B Janardhan Reddy, who quit hours before Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy held a review meeting on job notifications.

Since the Congress came to power after promising to dissolve the current TSPSC board and issue fresh notifications as well as a job calendar, Chief Minister Revanth Reddy had convened a review meeting on the TSPSC on Tuesday. However, the TSPSC Chairman decided to quit on “moral grounds” right after meeting the Chief Minister on Monday evening to pave the way for the constitution of a fresh board.

As reports of Janardhan Reddy’s unceremonious exit became public, a section of the unemployed youths and government job aspirants came out on the streets and celebrated. One of the key reasons for the defeat of the BRS was the anger of the job aspirants and unemployed youths frustrated with the repeated cancellation of the examinations conducted by the TSPSC as well as question paper leakage.

B Janardhan Reddy, a retired IAS officer who served in several important posts, was appointed as the TSPSC Chairman on 21 May, 2021 by the BRS government after he took voluntary retirement. His tenure was, however, marred by the question paper leakage and cancellation of examination.

On Monday, he met the new Chief Minister who was already annoyed about the way the TSPSC had been run in the past. Reddy was asked to bring details of job notifications issued so far to fill up vacancies and the schedule of the various examinations held by the TSPSC. The Chairman came back and sent his resignation to the Governor.

Dr Soundararajan is currently in Puducherry on an official programme. Although the Raj Bhavan did not issue any communique officially, it was learnt that she is yet to accept the resignation. Her office might seek legal opinion on the matter.

In a disastrous turn of events, the TSPSC question papers related to the Assistant Engineer (AE) Group I preliminary examination were first leaked in March this year. This led to the cancellation of the examination. An SIT was also formed to investigate the case and police arrested about 100 people, including those working in the TSPSC. Following the paper leak incident, the TSPSC cancelled the Group I preliminary examination. It was again conducted in June but the examination was subsequently cancelled, this time by the Telangana High Court due to the absence of biometric attendance and provision of OMR sheets with pre-printed hall ticket numbers. Group II examinations too were postponed following appeals by various student organisations.