Madhya Pradesh High Court
Dr. Drishti Pandey vs Madhya Pradesh Medical University ... on 18 December, 2023
Author: Sushrut Arvind Dharmadhikari
Bench: Sushrut Arvind Dharmadhikari
1
IN THE HIGH COURT OF MADHYA PRADESH
AT INDORE
BEFORE
HON'BLE SHRI JUSTICE SUSHRUT ARVIND DHARMADHIKARI
&
HON'BLE SHRI JUSTICE GAJENDRA SINGH
ON THE 18 th OF DECEMBER, 2023
WRIT PETITION No. 17074 of 2021
BETWEEN:-
DR. DRISHTI PANDEY W/O SHRI DR. HARDHIK MEHTA, AGED
ABOUT 34 YEARS, OCCUPATION: MEDICAL PROFESSIONAL "A"
BLOCK, KALINDI SQUARE, M.R. 9 SQUARE, A B ROAD (MADHYA
PRADESH)
.....PETITIONER
(SHRI BHAGWAN RAJ PANDEY, COUNSEL FOR THE PETITIONER).
AND
1. MADHYA PRADESH MEDICAL UNIVERSITY JABALPUR
THROUGH VICE CHANCELLOR JABALPUR (MADHYA
PRADESH)
2. EXAMINATION REGISTRAR MADHYA PRADESH MEDICAL
SCIENCE UNIVERSITY JABALPUR (MADHYA PRADESH)
3. SHRI ARVINDO COLLEGE OF DENTISTRY INDORE THR ITS
DEAN INDORE (MADHYA PRADESH)
4. DR. RAJESH KUMAR ASSISTANT PROFESSOR SHRI
ARVINDO COLLEGE OF DENTISTRY INDORE (MADHYA
PRADESH)
.....RESPONDENTS
(SHRI SUNIL JAIN, SENIOR ADVOCATE WITH SHRI KUNJAN MITTAL, COUNSEL
FOR RESPONDENT NO.1)
(SHRI NIKHIL PANDEY, COUNSEL FOR RESPONDENTS NO. 3 AND 4).
T h i s petition coming on for admission this day, Justice Sushrut Arvind
Dharmadhikari passed the following:
ORDER
Heard finally with the consent consent of both the parties.
The instant petition under Article 226 of the Constitution of India has been filed
seeking the following reliefs :
(a) That, this Hon'ble Court may kindly be pleased to allow this writ petition and the respondent
No.1 may kindly be directed to appoint an expert to re-check/re-valuate/retotaling the answer
sheet of MDS (Periodontology) final year examination paper of the petitioner held in the month of
April and October, 2019 in the interest of justice.
(b) That, the respondents may kindly be directed to issue review/fresh marksheet of MDS
(Periodontology) final year examination to the petitioner.
(c) That, the respondents may kindly be directed to pay compensation to the petitioner for their
malafide, arbitrary and negligent act.
2. The brief facts of the case are that the petitioner had appeared for the final
examination of Master of Dental Surgery (MDS) in the subject of Periodontology in the
month of April 2019. The results of the same were declared and the petitioner was
declared as 'failed' in theory examination. Petitioner did not apply for revaluation.
Thereafter, petitioner appeared in the second attempt examination in the month of
October, 2019. The petitioner failed in this examination as well, however, the petitioner
had passed the practical examination. Petitioner applied for revaluation / rechecking of
the answer sheets of the examination held in the month of October, 2019. After
revaluation of the answer-sheets, only 9 marks were enhanced.
3. The grievance of the petitioner is that she was informed that respondent No.4
who was the Assistant Professor (Guide) had created obstacles in the examination paper
since the petitioner had filed a complaint against him. As soon as respondent No.4 came
to know about the complaint, he threatened the petitioner that "I will see how you pass
the MDS examination''. The petitioner obtained copies of the answer-sheets of the
MDS examination through Right To Information (RTI). Now, as per the prayer clause of
this petition, the petitioner is seeking a direction to the respondents to revaluate the
answer-sheets for the examination held in the month of April and October, 2019 and also
prayed for consequential reliefs.
4. Per contra, Shri Sunil Jain, learned Senior Counsel appearing for respondents
No. 1 & 2 and Shri Nikhil Pandey, counsel appearing for respondents No.3 and 4
vehemently opposed the prayer and submitted that the scope of interference in the matter
of evaluation of answer sheets in the examination is extremely limited under Article 226 of
the Constitution. They pointed out that after having failed in the April 2019 examination,
the petitioner appeared in the October 2019 examination, however, she failed in the
second examination as well. Revaluation was conducted and 9 makes were increased.
As such, there is no provision for second revaluation of the answer-sheets. So far as
revaluation of answer-sheets of April 2019 examination is concerned, that cannot be done
in view of the fact that the petitioner had already appeared in the October 2019
examination and there was no prayer for revaluation for the examination conducted in the
month of April 2019. The said prayer has been raised for the first time in the writ
petition. Hence, this petition, being bereft of merit and substance deserves to be
dismissed.
5. In rejoinder, learned counsel for the petitioner had relied upon the order of the
Single Bench in Writ Petition No. 3296/2017 (Pragya Dubey vs. Jiwaji University
& Ors.) passed on 10.04.2019 wherein it was held that in rare and exceptional cases, the
writ Court can exercise its constitutional powers.
6. On going through the order passed in case of Pragya Dubey (supra) the
exceptional and rare situation therein was created by the University itself, therefore,
direction was issued by the Court to reconsider / revaluate the answer-sheets. In the
present case, no such rare or exceptional situation has been pointed out by the learned
counsel for the petitioner.
7. The scope of revaluation in absence of any specific rules is very limited.
The scope is open only when there is an allegation of non-evaluation or incorrect totaling
of marks in case of descriptive type answers. In the present case, the question-answers
are of descriptive nature and therefore, the wisdom of the expert evaluator in evaluating
the answers cannot be adjudged by exercising writ jurisdiction especially in the absence
of any expertise with this Court in the field of Periodontology. Moreso, in matters of
evaluation of marks awarded in examination ought not be interfered with or else it may
open the pandora's box and lead to flood of litigation which would be difficult for this
Court to handle. No such error was pointed out by the learned counsel for the petitioner
except for the allegation of harassment by respondent No.4. Even the prayer clause does
not contain any such prayer to seek enquiry action against respondent no.4. In absence
of such prayer, the prayer of the petitioner cannot be countenanced.
8. This Court is bolstered in its view by the decision of the Apex Court in the
case of Maharashtra State Board of Secondary and Higher Secondary Education
vs. Paritosh Bhupesh Kumar Sheth reported in AIR 1984 SC 1543, the relevant
extract of which is reproduced below :-
''The High Court has relied upon the fact that the University of Bombay and some other
Universities have recently made provisions permitting candidates to demand
revaluation. In our opinion, this has little relevance for the purpose of deciding about
the legal validity of the impugned regulations framed by the Board. We do not know
under what circumstances, the University of Bombay has decided to recognise a right in
the examinees to demand a revaluation. As far as the Board is concerned it has set out
in the counter affidavit the enormity of the task with which it is already faced, namely,
of completing twice during each year the process of evaluation and release of results of
some 3 lakhs of candidates appearing for the S.S.C and H.S.C. examinations to be held
in an interval of only a few months from one another. If the candidates are at all to be
given inspection of their answer books or the revaluation of the answer papers is to be
done in the presence of the candidates, the process is bound to be extremely time
consuming and if such a request is made by even about ten per cent of the candidates
who will be 30,000 in number, it would involve several thousands of man hours and is
bound to throw the entire system out of gear. Further, it is in the public interest that the
results Public examinations when published should have some finality attached to them.
If inspection, verification in the presence of the candidates and revaluation are to be
allowed as of right, it may lead to gross and indefinite uncertainty, particularly in regard
to the relative ranking, etc of the candidates, besides leading to utter confusion on
account of the enormity of the labour and time involved in the process.''
Dealing with the scope of interference in such policy matters by Courts, the Supreme
Court held :-
''......The Court cannot sit in judgment over the wisdom of the policy evolved by the
legislature and the subordinate regulation-making body. It may be a wise policy which
will fully effectuate the purpose of the enactment or it may be lacking in effectiveness
and hence calling for revision and improvement. But any drawbacks in the policy
incorporated in a rule or regulation will not render it ultra vires and the Court cannot
strike it down on the ground that, in its opinion, it is not a wise or prudent policy, but is
even a foolish one, and that it will not really serve to effectuate the purposes of the Act.
The legislature and its delegate are the sole repositories of the power to decide what
policy should be pursued in relation to matters covered by the Act and there is no scope
for interference by the Court unless the particular provision impugned before it can be
said to suffer from any legal infirmity, in the sense of its being wholly beyond the scope
of the regulation-making power or its being inconsistent with any of the provisions of
the parent enactment or in violation of any of the limitations imposed by the
Constitution .......... the Court should be extremely reluctant to substitute its own views
as to what is wise, prudent and proper in relation to academic matters in preference to
those formulated by professional men possessing technical expertise and rich experience
of actual day-to-day working of educational institutions and the departments controlling
them.''
Dealing with the contention that students who do very well in the examination, will be
highly pejudiced if there is no provision for revaluation, and therefore Courts should
intefere in such matters, the Supreme Court, held thus :-
''It will be wholly wrong for the court to make a pedantic and purely idealistic approach
to the problems of this nature, isolated from the actual realities and grass root problems
involved in the working of the system and unmindful of the consequences which would
emanate if a purely idealistic view as opposed to a pragmatic one were to be
propounded. It is equally important that the Court should also, as far as possible, avoid
any decision or interpretation of a statutory provision, rule or bye-law which would
bring about the result of rendering the system unworkable in practice.''
Considering the question whether a right of revaluation should be recognized, while
examining the validity of a Rule baring revaluation, the Supreme Court held :-
''We are unable to agree with the further reason stated by the High Court that since
"every student has a right to receive fair play in examination and get appropriate marks
matching his performance" it will be a denial of the right to such fair play if there is to
be a prohibition on the right to demand revaluation and unless a right to revaluation is
recognised and permitted there is an infringement of rules of fair play. What constitutes
fair play depends upon the facts and circumstances relating to each particular given
situation. If it is found that every possible precaution has been taken and all necessary
safeguards provided to ensure that the answer books inclusive of supplements are kept
in safe custody so as to eliminate the danger of their being tampered with and that the
evaluation is done by the examiners applying uniform standards with checks and cross-
checks at different stages and that measures for detection of malpractice, etc. have also
been effectively adopted, in such cases it will not be correct on the part of the Courts to
strike down the provision prohibiting revaluation on the ground that it violates the rules
of fair play.''
9. In view of the above, there is no scope for interference in the present petition
which fails and is hereby dismissed.
No order as to cost.
(S. A. DHARMADHIKARI) (GAJENDRA SINGH)
JUDGE JUDGE
vidya
