Delhi High Court
Ms. Aishani Ojha vs National Testing Agency & Anr. on 26 August, 2022
$~54
* IN THE HIGH COURT OF DELHI AT NEW DELHI
Date of Decision: 26th August, 2022
+ W.P.(C) 11927/2022 & CM APPLs. 35617/2022 & 35618/2022
MS. AISHANI OJHA ..... Petitioner
Through: Mr. Deepak Jain, Mr. Tanpreet
Gulati, Ms. Shaila Arora, Mr. Pradeep
KB, Ms. Akriti Arora, Mr. Aditya
Manubarwala and Mr. Varun Verma,
Advocates.
versus
NATIONAL TESTING AGENCY & ANR. ..... Respondents
Through: Mr. Chetan Sharma, ASG with
Mr. Rupesh Kumar, Ms. Pankhuri
Shrivastava, Mr. Amit Gupta and
Ms. Sarika Sam, Advocates for R-
1/NTA.
Mr. Sanjay Khanna, Standing
Counsel with Ms. Pragya Bhushan,
Mr. Karandeep Singh and
Mr. Tarandeep Singh, Advocates for
NTA.
Mr. Farman Ali, SPC with Ms. Usha
Jamnal, Advocate for R-2.
Mr. Arjun Mitra, Advocate for R-JEE
(Advance).
CORAM:
HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE SANJEEV NARULA
JUDGMENT
SANJEEV NARULA, J. (Oral):
1. Petitioner who secured 75.7614055 in session 1 and 8.3123556 in
Signature Not Verified
By:NITIN KAIN
Signing Date:27.08.2022
01:08:52
session 2 of JEE (Main) Examination, 2022 [hereinafter, "JEE (Main)"]
and is ineligible to appear for the JEE (Advanced) Examination, 2022
[hereinafter, "JEE (Advanced)], challenges the correctness of the final
score-card issued by Respondent No. 1 - National testing Agency ["NTA"]
on the ground of technical glitches resulting in non-recording of her
responses to several questions in session 2 of the said examination. She
prays for a direction to allow her to re-attempt session 2, and appear in JEE
(Advanced).
2. Briefly stated, Petitioner's case is that she had attempted a total of 75
questions in session 2 of JEE (Main). However, to her utter dismay, when
the NTA declared the provisional answer key and candidates' response
sheets on 03rd August, 2022, only 3 questions were shown as attempted in
her response sheet. Upon discovering such error, Petitioner raised her
grievance before the NTA via several e-mail communications and even
personally submitted a copy of her application to obtain her audit log, but to
no avail. As there is no mechanism for re-evaluation/re-checking of results,
Petitioner is constrained to approach this Court.
3. Mr. Deepak Jain, counsel for Petitioner, alleges anomalies, technical
glitches, system malfunctions and other abundant errors in the conduct of
JEE (Main) resulting in grave prejudice to Petitioner, who has been unfairly
shown to have attained such a low percentile, despite her bright academic
record.
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By:NITIN KAIN
Signing Date:27.08.2022
01:08:52
4. After hearing the preliminary submissions advanced by Mr. Jain, the
Court on 17th August, 2022, while issuing notice, directed the NTA to file
the audit log and response sheet of Petitioner for examination. Consequent
thereto, NTA produced the record/ documents, which were thoroughly
examined by Petitioner and her counsel. Mr. Jain apprised the Court of
various discrepancies between the response sheet and audit log of Petitioner
(as produced by the NTA). Further, he submitted that as per general
instructions for conduct of JEE (Main) entailed in the information bulletin,
the examination was scheduled for 180 minutes [i.e., from 15:00 PM to
18:00 PM] and a clock is set by the server which automatically logs out the
candidate after the expiry of the allotted time. The candidate's submitted
answers are recorded by the end of the said time. In that light, he pointed out
that about 42 responses of Petitioner were randomly cleared in last 13
minutes of the examination; 12 of which were cleared at 18:01:44:560 PM,
which is impossible, considering the automatic submission of the paper.
5. On the other hand, NTA controverted the allegations of technical
glitches. Counsel for NTA, placing reliance upon the audit log, emphasised
that Petitioner cleared the responses entered by her, and thus, the same were
not evaluated and the percentile for session 2, as mentioned in the score-card
of Petitioner, is correct. As regards the issue of substantial number of
clearances, he argues that no reason can be conclusively attributed thereto as
giving a particular response to a question is the prerogative of the candidate.
Perhaps on account of the policy of negative marking for incorrect
responses, she decided to clear the responses. It is generally a practice
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By:NITIN KAIN
Signing Date:27.08.2022
01:08:52
amongst candidates to not attempt the questions they are unsure of, in order
to avoid negative marking.
6. Although Petitioner has not secured the cut-off percentile in either of
the sessions, yet, having regard to the discrepancies highlighted by Mr. Jain,
on 22nd August, 2022, the Court passed interim directions to Respondents to
register and process Petitioner's application for JEE (Advanced). Now, since
the relevant record has been produced, the Court has finally heard the matter
and given anxious consideration to the submissions advanced by the
counsel, and perused the documents filed on record.
7. Mr. Jain has meticulously taken this Court through the discrepancies
between the response sheet and audit log of Petitioner to indicate that her
responses had been selected for more than 3 questions (as visible in the audit
log), but the same were not recorded. For ready reference, the said
discrepancies are enumerated in a tabulation hereinbelow:
Question ID/ Time Response in Response in
Code Audit Log Response Sheet
(PM)
100422 17:00:56:943 Selected Not attempted
response
100425 16:58:47:013 Selected Not attempted
response
100481 15:38:07:173 Selected Not attempted
response
100483 17:22:02:443 Selected Not attempted
Signature Not Verified
By:NITIN KAIN
Signing Date:27.08.2022
01:08:52
response
100486 15:39:06:567 Selected Not attempted
response
100487 17:17:50:723 Selected Not attempted
response
100488 17:20:03:613 Selected Not attempted
response
100490 17:21:05:020 Selected Not attempted
response
8. The above-mentioned discrepancies initially casted a doubt in the
mind of the Court. In order to gain further clarity on the issue, it was
considered appropriate to direct the presence of a technical expert from the
National Informatics Centre.1 Mr. Ramesh Kumar, technical expert joined
via video conferencing and explained the process of conducting and
recording of responses from candidates of JEE examinations, and
satisfactorily answered the Court's queries.
9. It emerges that each subject in JEE (Main) comprised of two sections.
Section A consisted of multiple-choice questions (that required candidate to
select the correct answer), and section B has subjective questions (that
required candidates to write the final value/answer as a numerical value
using the mouse and on-screen virtual keypad). When a candidate clears
their response to a multiple-choice question, the audit log displays it as 'CR'
i.e., clear response. However, if the candidate clears a response to a
Vide order dated 25th August, 2022.
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By:NITIN KAIN
Signing Date:27.08.2022
01:08:52
subjective question, the audit log continues to display it as 'SR' i.e., selected
response although that amounts to a non-attempted question. For illustration,
two entries from Petitioner's audit log demonstrating the cursor movement,
are reproduced below:
Roll No Paper QDisp QCode Cand Qlog C IP
ID Resp Action
UP09002594 1 21 100425 7 27 Jul 2022 SR 192.168.6.129
16:58:47:013
UP09002594 1 85 100481 27 Jul 2022 SR 192.168.6.129
15:38:08:707
10. Insofar as Petitioner's responses being recorded beyond 18:00 PM is
concerned, it has been explained that although the scheduled time of
commencement of the examination was 15:00 PM, the same however,
commences only when a candidate selects/presses the start button on the
system, which may be later than 15:00 PM. The clock set by the server does
not display the time, but runs a countdown displaying the remaining
minutes/ time. The system is programmed to send an intimation of
conduction of test and candidate's activity to the server every minute during
the entire allotted time. This is to monitor and detect technical snags as the
network/test administrator can, on a real-time basis, keep track and assist a
candidate if a need so arises. Based on performance of the system on which
examination is being attempted, there can be a lag of micro-seconds in the
updates that are sent every minute to the server. These micro-seconds
eventually add up to one minute or more, which resulted in the extension of
the allotted time and thus, Petitioner's responses were recorded beyond
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By:NITIN KAIN
Signing Date:27.08.2022
01:08:52
18:00 PM. Considering the above, Petitioner's contention that a technical
glitch led to clearance of her responses, does not sustain. The delay of one
minute in termination of examination perhaps arose due to the above-
explained lag in the system. Petitioner's contention is based on conjectures,
without any credible basis.
11. The NTA is endowed with conducting various entry-level
examinations at the national level. It has established a mechanism and
undertaken measures to endeavour a test environment that is free from data
infringement or manipulation. For this reason, the JEE (Main) is conducted
on a computer system wherein every movement of a candidates' cursor on
the screen and their responses are recorded and stored in an electronic
database in the form of audit logs, that have been duly produced before the
Court. The record/ documents relied on by the parties, particularly the
response sheet and the audit log for session 2 of JEE (Main) of Petitioner
have been scrutinized. As per the audit log, Petitioner cleared responses to
several questions after having already attempted/selected a response thereto.
While Petitioner has persistently contended that the same are recorded
erroneously, the Court finds no reason to believe such speculations. The
audit log maintained by the NTA records not only the selected response, but
also the number of times a candidate has visited the question, response so
selected/entered on a real- time basis. Petitioner has also failed to
demonstrate that she had indeed attempted 75 questions. Her version is
contradicted by the verified electronic record of NTA, which is maintained
by National Informatics Centre. No technical error is manifest and thus, the
Signature Not Verified
By:NITIN KAIN
Signing Date:27.08.2022
01:08:52
Court remains unconvinced of Petitioner's claim that a technical snag in the
system has resulted in low score in JEE (Main).
12. For the foregoing reasons, there is no merit in the petition.
13. Accordingly, the present petition is dismissed along with pending
application(s).
SANJEEV NARULA, J
AUGUST 26, 2022
nk
Signature Not Verified
By:NITIN KAIN
Signing Date:27.08.2022
01:08:52
