Andhra Pradesh Govt Defends Mega DSC-2025, Dismisses Allegations Of Irregularities & Paper Leak

Amaravati: The Andhra Pradesh government on Saturday rejected what it termed as baseless and misleading allegations surrounding Mega DSC-2025, asserting that the teacher recruitment exercise was conducted transparently, fairly and in accordance with notified rules and legal provisions.

Addressing a press conference, Education Secretary Kona Sasidhar said every stage of the recruitment process was carried out using advanced technology, strict security protocols and scientific normalisation mechanisms.

"Mega DSC-2025 stands as a landmark recruitment exercise conducted with advanced technology, strict security protocols, scientific normalisation, transparent grievance redressal and complete adherence to law," he said.

The Education Secretary said 16,347 teacher posts were notified under Mega DSC-2025, attracting around 3.3 lakh applicants.

According to him, the recruitment process faced 241 court cases, including one in the Supreme Court, and 226 legal challenges during various stages, but was completed in a record 145-148 days without judicial interruption.

He said 15,941 appointment orders were ultimately issued after completion of examinations, verification and selection procedures.

Rejecting allegations of question paper leakage, Sasidhar said the examinations were conducted through TCS iON, a computer-based testing platform used by several national recruitment and educational agencies.

A total of 89 examination sessions were conducted across 154 centres, including 19 outside Andhra Pradesh, using different question papers generated from a question bank comprising nearly 42,000 questions.

The official said the system employed 256-bit encryption, role-based access controls, audit trails and multi-layer cybersecurity protocols, leaving no scope for manual intervention or unauthorised access.

He said no official complaint regarding question paper leakage had been received and no evidence had been produced by any individual or organisation.

The government also rejected allegations of data deletion or manipulation, stating that candidate responses, normalised scores, rankings and selection records were maintained through secure digital systems.

Sasidhar said draft answer keys, final keys, normalised scores and district-wise merit lists were published as per schedule and continue to remain accessible to candidates.

Dismissing claims that merit lists were concealed, he said candidate IDs, names, scores, ranks, community categories and local or non-local status were publicly disclosed.

The Education Secretary maintained that the recruitment process was conducted in accordance with reservation rosters, recruitment rules and government orders, and no court had found any violation.

Referring to allegations surrounding a candidate, he said the individual had no role in examination conduct, evaluation, question paper preparation or recruitment databases.

According to officials, the (accused) candidate failed to attend certificate verification despite being informed and was rendered ineligible for appointment under recruitment rules.

The government also defended implementation of reservation policies, stating that horizontal reservations and SC sub-classification were carried out strictly in accordance with applicable government orders.

Further, officials said the sports quota recruitment process was conducted separately, with 421 posts earmarked for meritorious sportspersons following verification and scrutiny procedures.

To address complaints, the government established a three-tier grievance redressal mechanism comprising zonal committees, a state-level committee and a final appellate authority. Through this system, nearly 33,000 candidate grievances were examined and resolved, officials said.

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