Mukesh Latiyal vs The State Of Rajasthan ...
2023 Latest Caselaw 2649 Raj

Citation : 2023 Latest Caselaw 2649 Raj
Judgement Date : 4 April, 2023

Rajasthan High Court - Jodhpur

Mukesh Latiyal vs The State Of Rajasthan ... on 4 April, 2023

Bench: Vinit Kumar Mathur

[2023/RJJD/008327]

HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE FOR RAJASTHAN AT JODHPUR S.B. Civil Writ Petition No. 16139/2022

Mukesh Latiyal S/o Shri Shyam Sunder, Aged About 23 Years, Resident Of Village Khakhadaki, Tehsil Merta City, District Nagaur.

----Petitioner Versus

1. The State Of Rajasthan, Through The Principal Secretary, Department Of School Education, Government Of Rajasthan, Secretariat, Jaipur.

2. The Rajasthan Staff Selection Baord, Jaipur, Through Its Secretary.

----Respondents

For Petitioner(s) : Mr. Hanuman Singh Choudhary with Mr. Pradeep Singh Chuahan For Respondent(s) : Mr. Hemant Choudhary, GC Mr. Vinit Sanadhya Mr. Manvendra Singh Bhati

HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE VINIT KUMAR MATHUR

Order

04/04/2023

Heard learned counsel for the parties.

The present writ petition has been filed with the following

prayers :-

i) The action of the respondents while asking ambiguous questions in question booklet and not considering the objections for same as well as not inviting objection on final answer key despite making changes in some answer in the examination of Direct Recruitment for the post of Lab Assistant in pursuance to Advertisement (Annex.1), may kindly be declared illegal, unjust, arbitrary and violative of Article 14, 16 & 21 of the Constitution of India.

ii) The respondents may kindly be directed to award the marks of aforesaid disputed questions to the petitioner and accordingly revise the result of Direct Recruitment of Lab Assistant - 2022 and further respondents be directed to consider the revise

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marks of petitioner in recruitment 2022 and if petitioner come in final merit then he may be provided appointment.

Iii) In alternate, an independent committee for evaluating the question paper in regard to disputed question given in the examination of Direct Recruitment of Lab Assistant-2022 conducted by respondents may kindly be constituted and revise the result accordingly, and/or".

Learned counsel for the petitioner vehemently submitted that

the answers to the questions No.53 and 127 of Master Paper have

wrongly been assessed by the respondents as 'B' and 'A'

respectively, whereas the answers to the questions No.53 and 127

of the Master Paper, accordingly to the petitioner and as per the

Text Books are 'C' and 'B' respectively and, therefore, he submits

that the evaluation of the question papers made by the

respondents is incorrect and because of the non-awarding of the

marks of questions No.53 and 127, the petitioner could not be

selected for the post of Lab Assistant in pursuance of the

advertisement - Annex.1. He, therefore, prays that the writ

petition may be allowed and the respondents may be directed to

correct the marks awarded to the petitioner as per the Text Books

mentioned in the writ petition.

Per contra, learned counsel for the respondents submit that

the correct answers to the question Nos.53 and 127, as per the

Expert Committee are held to be 'B' and 'A' respectively in the

multiple choice questions and evaluation of the questions has

rightly been done by the respondents. He further submits that in

view of the judgment of Hon'ble Supreme Court in the case of

Vikesh Kumar Gupta & Ors vs. The State of Rajasthan &

Ors, (2021) 2 SCC 309, the prayer made in the writ petition

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cannot be granted to the petitioner. He, therefore, prays that the

writ petition may be dismissed.

I have considered the submissions made at the Bar and gone

through the relevant record of the case.

The only prayer in the writ petition is that the correct answer

as per the text books mentioned by the petitioner in the writ

petition shows that for question No.53, the correct answer should

have been option 'C' and for question No.127, the correct answer

should have been option 'B'. Since the respondents have got the

questions evaluated and adjudicated by an Expert Body and have

come to the conclusion that the correct answers to question

Nos.53 and 127 are options 'B' and 'A' respectively, therefore, the

Expert Opinion in the present case will prevail. The Hon'ble

Supreme Court in the case of Vikesh Kumar Gupta (supra) has

held that it was not open for the High Court to come to a

conclusion different from that of the Expert Committee while

examining the correctness of the questions and answers in a

selection process. Since the Courts are not having any expertise

on the specific subjects of the academic matter, therefore, the

Courts should be slow in interfering with the expert opinion in the

academic matter. Para 12 and 13 of the said judgment are

reproduced as under :-

"12. In view of the above law laid down by this Court, it was not open to the Division Bench to have examined the correctness of the questions and the answer key to come to a conclusion different from that of the Expert Committee in its judgment dated 12.03.2019. Reliance was placed by the Appellants on Richal and Ors. v. Rajasthan Public Service Commission and Ors.

MANU/SC/0498/2018MANU/SC/0498/2018 : (2018) 8 SCC 81. In the said judgment, this Court interfered

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with the selection process only after obtaining the opinion of an expert committee but did not enter into the correctness of the questions and answers by itself. Therefore, the said judgment is not relevant for adjudication of the dispute in this case.

13. A perusal of the above judgments would make it clear that courts should be very slow in interfering with expert opinion in academic matters. In any event, assessment of the questions by the courts itself to arrive at correct answers is not permissible. The delay in finalization of appointments to public posts is mainly caused due to pendency of cases challenging selections pending in courts for a long period of time. The cascading effect of delay in appointments is the continuance of those appointed on temporary basis and their claims for regularization. The other consequence resulting from delayed appointments to public posts is the serious damage caused to administration due to lack of sufficient personnel:".