Allahabad High Court
Anuj Dhama vs State Of U.P. & Ors. on 29 July, 2013
Bench: Sudhir Agarwal
HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT ALLAHABAD
AFR
Court No. - 34
Case :- WRIT - A No. - 33984 of 2010
Petitioner :- Anuj Dhama
Respondent :- State Of U.P. & Ors.
Counsel for Petitioner :- Hari Om Khare, Anil Sharma, V.P.Mishra
Counsel for Respondent :- C.S.C.
Connected with
1. Case :- WRIT - A No. - 34779 of 2010
Petitioner :- Sunil Kumar Yadav
Respondent :- State Of U.P. Thru' Principal Secretary Home & Others
Counsel for Petitioner :- M. Sarwar Khan
Counsel for Respondent :- C.S.C.
2. Case :- WRIT - A No. - 36265 of 2010
Petitioner :- Sohan Singh
Respondent :- State Of U.P. & Others
Counsel for Petitioner :- Tarun Kumar Sharma,Ashish Kumar Srivastava
Counsel for Respondent :- C.S.C.
3. Case :- WRIT - A No. - 36249 of 2010
Petitioner :- Sarvesh Kumari
Respondent :- State Of U.P. And Others
Counsel for Petitioner :- G.K. Malviya,A.K. Rai,V.K. Singh
Counsel for Respondent :- C.S.C.
4. Case :- WRIT - A No. - 37221 of 2010
Petitioner :- Sairabano
Respondent :- State Of U.P. And Others
Counsel for Petitioner :- Rajendra Singh,Suresh Gupta
Counsel for Respondent :- C.S.C.
5. Case :- WRIT - A No. - 36139 of 2010
Petitioner :- Tanveer Alam
Respondent :- State Of U.P. And Others
Counsel for Petitioner :- B. Pant
Counsel for Respondent :- C.S.C.
6. Case :- WRIT - A No. - 36209 of 2010
Petitioner :- Uma Devi
Respondent :- State Of U.P. And Others
Counsel for Petitioner :- Praveen Kumar Jaiswal
Counsel for Respondent :- C.S.C.
7. Case :- WRIT - A No. - 41183 of 2012
Petitioner :- Ashok Kumar
Respondent :- State Of U.P. & Others
Counsel for Petitioner :- R.C. Tripathi,P.K. Tripathi
Counsel for Respondent :- C.S.C.
8. Case :- WRIT - A No. - 34162 of 2013
Petitioner :- Ashok Kumar
Respondent :- State Of U.P. And Anr.
Counsel for Petitioner :- Ram Chandra Tripathi
Counsel for Respondent :- C.S.C.
Hon'ble Sudhir Agarwal,J.
1. All these matters involve common questions of law and facts and relates to selection/recruitment of Constables in U.P. Police Force vide advertisement published in daily newspaper dated 19.5.2010 i.e. U.P. Police Constables Direct Recruitment, 2009.
2. Only Sri Anil Sharma, Advocate appeared in one matter i.e. Writ Petition No.33984 of 2010 and in rest of the matters, none has appeared on behalf of petitioners though the cases have been called in revised list. In some of the cases, counter affidavits have been filed.
3. The aforesaid recruitment has been challenged only on the ground that four questions of Part II and answers of two questions in Part IV of written examination were wrong and, therefore, entire selection is vitiated in law.
4. The reply, in respect to these matters, is almost common and for the purpose of reference, paragraphs 9, 10, 11, 12,15 and 16 of counter affidavit filed in Writ Petition No.33984 of 2010 is reproduced as under:
"9. That the Board has found the answer of the 4 questions of Part II and answer of the 2 question of Part IV written examination are wrong, therefore, their questions were cancelled by the Board the marks of those question were equally distributed upon to seminary question as per law held in writ petition No.2669 of 2009 Pawan Kumar Agrihari Vs. U.P. Public Service Commission.
10. That in the written examination there were 160 questions and each question having 1.25 marks and the total examination was 200 marks.
11. That after considering the objections the Board published the merit list on 17.05.2010 and subsequently amended the merit list was published on the web site as well as in the different daily news paper on 19.05.2010.
12. That as per amended notice published on 19 May 2010 the Board has given the cut of marks of the selected candidates of various categories after applying the reservation rules."
"15. That in the present matter in Part-II of the written examination total 11 answer of the petitioner are found correct in Question No. 69, petitioner, Anurag Dhama had chosen two options B & D, therefore, the marks of this answer has not counted as per instructions given in the Booklet.
Total correct answer of the petitioner
Total no. of question - no. of wrong question
11/40 X 50 = 11/36 X 50 = 15.2777.
16. That the marks of the petitioner in Part-II paper is 15.2777 which is less than 33% qualifying marks (16.6666), which is required to be obtained by a candidate in each post separately. Hence the petitioner was not selected in the aforesaid examination."
5. Since even after answering the aforesaid question and re-preparation of the result, petitioners have not been selected, in my view, petitioners would not be entitled for any relief.
6. However, Sri Anil Sharma, learned counsel for the petitioner in writ petition no.33984 of 2010 contended that instead of cancelling those six incorrect questions, respondents ought to have awarded marks in those questions to all and therefore, procedure followed by respondents is not equitably justified as that has made petitioners unsuccessful and unqualified. Elaborating the submission, Sri Sharma contended that by cancelling the six questions, marks of every question in equal proportion have been increased and this has resulted in increased negative marks in respect to wrong answers given by the candidates. This has resulted in denial of benefit to certain candidates, who otherwise would have been benefited if for the wrong questions, everybody would have been granted marks.
7. Having given my anxious consideration to the above submissions, I find no force in the submission.
8. What learned counsel for the petitioners wanted to argue is that even if certain candidates having no knowledge about the questions, which were ultimately found to be incorrect yet they should have been rewarded since those questions themselves have been found to be incorrect. This contention, if accepted, would result in treating unequal as equal, inasmuch as, there would have been certain candidates who could have attempted that question but finding no correct answer in the options, did not attempted or some tried to take a chance, and, some having no idea whatsoever, did not attempt. On the contrary, when these questions are excluded, remaining correct questions will be available for testing all the candidates uniformly and by equitable and uniform increase of marks to the remaining questions, correct merit of all the candidates can be judged applying same standard. This has been applied uniformly to all the candidates and therefore, has resulted in equal consideration without any undue advantage to anyone. This has also resulted in ousting the scope of any undue advantage by any individual.
9. There is another reason not to accept the above submission. If on the administrative side, some error has crept in, and the authorities have sought to rectify their error in a manner, which per se may not be said to be arbitrary and illegal, the Court, in judicial review, will not sit in appeal over such decision of Executive and therefore also there is no reason to interfere with the decision taken by respondents in excluding the incorrect questions from the field of competition and thereafter increasing proportional marks to the remaining questions so as to keep the maximum and minimum intact.
10. As already said that even after examination of incorrect questions and reconsideration of matter, petitioners have not been found selected hence, in my view, no relief can be granted to them. The writ petitions deserve to be dismissed and are accordingly dismissed.
11. Interim order, if any, stands vacated.
12. There shall be no order as to costs.
Order Date :- 29.7.2013
KA
