Delhi High Court
Kuldeep Kumar And Ors. vs Commissioner Of Police And Anr. on 13 August, 2015
$~22
* IN THE HIGH COURT OF DELHI AT NEW DELHI
+ W.P.(C) 6211/2015
Date of judgment: 13th August, 2015
KULDEEP KUMAR AND ORS. ..... Petitioner
Through : Mr. Harpreet Singh, Advocate.
Versus
COMMISSIONER OF POLICE AND ANR. ..... Respondents
Through : Mr. Raman Duggal, Standing
Counsel with Ms. Aayushi Gupta
and Mr. Arun Panwar,
Advocates for respondent Nos.
1& 2.
CORAM:
HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE G.S.SISTANI
HON'BLE MS. JUSTICE SANGITA DHINGRA SEHGAL
G.S.SISTANI, J.
1. Aggrieved by the order passed by the Central Administrative Tribunal,
Principal Bench, New Delhi dated 19.05.2015 in Original Application
No. 4269/2014 with 4475/2014, the petitioners have filed the present
writ petition under Article 226 of the Constitution of India for setting
aside the aforesaid order and for issuing necessary directions to the
respondents.
2. The brief facts of the case are that the applications were invited by the
respondents for the recruitment to the post of Temporary Constable
(Executive) (Male) 2013. As per the notification the marking scheme
for each subject was to be as follows:
General Knowledge/Current Affairs : 50 marks
Numerical Ability : 15 marks
Reasoning : 35 marks
The grievance of the petitioners is that the marking scheme of the
question paper was found to be different from what was stated in the
notification. Resultantly, the petitioners were not able to attempt the
question paper in the manner they had expected.
3. Mr. Harpreet Singh, Counsel for the petitioners submits that the order
passed by the Central Administrative Tribunal is unjust, illegal,
arbitrary and against the principles of natural justice. It is further
contended that the Tribunal has failed to appreciate the arguments put
forth by the petitioners, in the light of the above submission the order
passed by the Tribunal is bad in law.
4. It is further submitted by Mr. Harpreet Singh, counsel for the petitioner
that the respondents are under a legal obligation to inform the
candidates appearing in the test if there is any alteration in the marking
scheme of the examination. However, in the absence of any such
intimation the result published is liable to be set-aside.
5. Learned counsel for the petitioner has relied upon the judgment of the
Hon'ble Supreme Court N.T. Devin Katti and others. Vs. Karnataka
Public Service Commission and others. reported as (1990) 3 SCC 157,
6. On the contrary, Mr.Raman Duggal referred to the reply filed before
the Tribunal where it has been stated that while the Rules prescribed
the ratio of 50:15:35 marks to be followed for the three categories, it
had no where been mentioned in the advertisement as to the number of
questions which will be put under the respective categories, and,
therefore, the respondents have not deviated from the total marks
allocated to a specific subject, and to harm and injustice has been
caused to any of the applicants, who had appeared in the said written
examination. In their counter reply, they had declared that the
respondents are intent on evaluating all the Answer Sheets/OMRs of all
candidates by adopting a method of scaling, by allocating marks to each
subjects/topics as per the advertisement, as well as the Standing Orders,
and had submitted that the evaluation of all Answer Sheets will be
conducted in the following manner giving the proportionality or ratio
prescribed for each subject:-
Sl. Subject Actual Total Method of Scaling Total
Questions marks marks after
No. given method of
scaling
question
2. Reasoning 20 35 35/20= 1.75 for each 35
question
3. Numerical 14 15 15/14= 1.0714285 for 15
ability each question
7. Further, Mr. Raman Duggal, learned counsel appearing for the
respondents denied the allegation of any bias or discrimination in
applying the scaling method in the present examination of 2013 and
justified the application of scaling method uniformly to all the
candidates to undo the effect of 'subject variability'.
8. The counsel for the respondents clarifies that the adoption of such
norms of scaling would cause no harm to the appearing candidates and
such scaling of marks will have a homogenous effect on all the
candidates. The counsel further submits that after applying the scaling
no candidate will be able to take advantage of, or be at a disadvantage
by the actual number of questions of a subject asked in the question
paper.
9. We have heard the learned counsel for the parties and considered their
rival submissions. We have also carefully examined the impugned
order passed by the Central Administrative Tribunal dated 19.05.2015.
It is the case of the petitioners that the respondents have failed to follow
the scheme of the examination and due to change in the scheme of the
examination, the selection process stood vitiated. The short point which
comes up for consideration before this Court is with respect to the
sustainability of exam conducted on 16.11.2014 for recruitment for the
post of Temporary Constable(Executive) Male in the Delhi Police-
2013. It would be useful to reproduce para 15 of the judgment of the
Central Administrative Tribunal, which read as under:
"15. However, as we have highlighted while reproducing
the prayer portion as made out by the applicants in their
OAs, the alternative prayer of the applicants themselves
in Para-8(ii) of their OAs is that in the alternative,
instead of cancellation of the written examination in its
entirety, the respondents should adopt the marking
scheme as notified by themselves earlier. Now that the
respondents are willing to do so, we do not find the
proposed scaling method to be far away from the
alternative prayer of the applicants, as made by them in
Para-8(ii) of their OAs. By adopting the scaling method,
there will be no prejudice caused to anybody, as even
though the respondents have submitted that against the
applicant‟s claim of 67 questions being from the General
Knowledge, there were only 66 questions, and as against
the claim of 11 questions relating to numerical ability,
there were 14 questions, and as against the claim of 22
questions in respect of reasoning, there were actually
only 20 questions, which were re-arranged differently in
the question paper series „A‟, „B‟, „C‟ and „D‟, we do not
find any legal or procedural hindrance in the
respondents adopting the proposed scaling method."
10. The Apex Court in Sanjay Singh and Anr. v. U.P. Public Service
Commission, Allahabad and Anr. (2007) 3 SCC 720 has also
discussed that the scaling process whereby raw marks in different
subjects are adjusted to a common scale, is a recognized method of
ensuring uniformity inter se among the candidates who have taken
examinations in different subjects. The Apex Court, in Sanjay Singh
(supra) has laid down thus:
"25. A. Edwin Harper Jr. & v. Vidya Sagar Misra in
their publication "Research on Examinations in India"
have tried to explain and define scaling. We may usefully
borrow the same. A degree 'Fahrenheit' is different from
a degree 'Centigrade'. Though both express temperature
in degrees, the 'degree' is different for the two scales.
What is 40 Degrees in Centigrade scale is 104 Degrees
in Fahrenheit scale. Similarly, when marks are assigned
to answer-scripts in different papers, say by Examiner 'A'
in Geometry and Examiner 'B' in History, the meaning or
value of the 'marks' is different. Scaling is the process
which brings the mark awarded by Examiner 'A' in
regard to Geometry scale and the marks awarded by
Examiner 'B' in regard to History scale, to a common
scale. Scaling is the exercise of putting the marks which
are the results of different scales adopted in different
subjects by different examiners into a common scale so
as to permit comparison of inter se merit. By this
exercise, the raw marks awarded by the examiner in
different subjects are converted to a 'score' on a common
scale by applying a statistical formula. The 'raw marks'
when converted to a common scale are known as the
'scaled marks'. Scaling process, whereby raw marks in
different subjects are adjusted to a common scale, is a
recognized method of ensuring uniformity inter se among
the candidates who have taken examinations in different
subjects, as, for example, the Civil Services
Examination."
11. Mr. Harpreet Singh at this stage submits that the observations made by
the Central Administrative Tribunal in para 18 of the impugned order
should be deleted as it would amount to granting licence to the
respondents to introduce the concept of scaling in the Rules of the
Examination itself.
12. We find force in the submission of Mr. Harpreet Singh. We modify
Para 18 of the Central Administrative Tribunal. Instead of a direction,
it should read 'as a suggestion‟ as this aspect is purely in the domain of
the respondents. We may also add that in fact respondents should
make every endeavour to ensure that there is no discrepancy in the
question paper.
13. We find no infirmity in the judgment of the Central Administrative
Tribunal; resultantly the writ petition is dismissed.
G. S. SISTANI, J
SANGITA DHINGRA SEHGAL, J
AUGUST 13, 2015
gr
