Rajasthan High Court

Kartar Singh S/O Shri Prahlad vs State Of Rajasthan on 22 September, 2023

Bench: Anoop Kumar Dhand

       HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE FOR RAJASTHAN
                   BENCH AT JAIPUR

              S.B. Civil Writ Petition No. 6782/2019

Kartar Singh S/o Shri Prahlad, Aged About 20 Years, R/o Village
Barada, Post Sonkh, Tehsil Kathumar, District Alwar (Raj.)
                                                                    ----Petitioner
                                   Versus
1.     State Of Rajasthan, Through Its Chief Secretary, Govt.
       Secretariat, Jaipur (Raj.)
2.     President, Rajasthan Subordinate And Ministerial Service
       Selection Board, Jaipur, Rajya Krishi Prabandh Sansthan
       Parisar, Durgapura Jaipur (Raj.)
3.     Dy. Secretary, Rajasthan Subordinate And Ministerial
       Service Selection Board, Jaipur, Rajya Krishi Prabandh
       Sansthan Parisar, Durgapura Jaipur (Raj.)
                                                                 ----Respondents

For Petitioner(s) : Mr. Kuldeep Kumar Sharma For Respondent(s) : Mr. Sandeep Taneja

HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE ANOOP KUMAR DHAND Order

RESERVED ON ::: 14.09.2023 PRONOUNCED ON ::: 22.09.2023

1. Instant petition has been filed by the petitioner with the

following prayer:

"(i) Issue a writ order or direction in the nature thereby quashed and set aside the final answer key dated 07.03.2019 and restored the answer key dated 19.08.2018 in the larger interest of justice.

(ii) Issue an appropriate writ order or direction in the nature thereof thereby, direct the respondent to given appointment to the petitioner on the post of L.D.C. Grade-II/Junior Assistant after correcting the wrong answer in the answer key as question No.05 was given wrong and the respondents be further directed to treat the answers of the petitioner correct for the said questions and proper marks may kindly be given to the petitioner by issuing fresh answer key.

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(iii) Issue an appropriate writ order or direction in the nature thereof thereby, direct the respondent to constitute an independent committee of expert for rectifying the error committed in the revised answer key.

(iv) Issue any other writ order or direction, which this Hon'ble Court deems fit and proper, may kindly be passed in favour of the petitioner.

(v) Cost of the writ petition be also awarded in favour of the petitioner."

Submissions by the petitioner:

2. Counsel for the petitioner submits that pursuant to the

advertisement dated 16.04.2018 the petitioner participated in the

process for selection for appointment on the post of Clerk Grade-

II/Junior Assistant. Counsel submit that when the answer key was

issued by the respondents option B of the question No.5 was

treated as correct answer which was subsequently changed by the

respondents by issuing final answer key and this time option A

was treated as correct answer. Counsel submits that as per the

authentic books written by the subject experts, option B was the

correct answer which was unnecessarily changed by the

respondents in the final answer key. Counsel submits that under

these circumstances interference of this Court is warranted.

Submissions by the respondents:

3. Per contra, learned counsel for the respondents opposed the

arguments raised by the counsel for the petitioner and submitted

that at the time of declaration of result initially model answer key

was issued by the respondents wherein option B was treated as

correct answer of question No.5 and at the time of issuance of this

model answer key, objections were invited from the candidates

against all the questions. Counsel submits that several candidates

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submitted their objections against the correctness of the answer

of question No.5 and other disputed questions. Counsel submits

that thereafter a committee of experts was constituted to examine

the correctness of the answers on the basis of authentic books of

the subject experts and all of them opined that option A is the

correct answer of question No.5. Counsel submits that on the

basis of the opinion of the experts answer of question No.5 was

changed and accordingly the revised final answer key was issued

and thereafter the final result was issued and thereafter State has

issued appointment order to all the selected candidates. Counsel

submits that once the answer key has been finalized by the

subject experts the same should not be interfered by this Court by

exercising its jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Constitution of

India. In support of his contentions he has place reliance upon the

judgment of Hon'ble Apex Court passed in the case of Vikash

Kumar Gupta & Anr. Vs. The State of Rajasthan & Ors. (Civil

Appeal No.3649/2020). Counsel submits that under these

circumstances, interference of this Court is not warranted.

Analysis and Reasoning:

4. Heard and considered the submissions made at the Bar and

perused the material available on the record.

5. This Court finds that firstly this Court would not be in a

position to become a historian and correct the answers at its own

level. Admittedly, the respondents have invited objections and

thereafter on the basis of recommendations of expert committee

have deleted several questions and answers in the answer key and

answer of Question No.5 has been changed from option B to

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option A. The view of the experts cannot be substituted by this

Court.

6. The aforesaid issue has already been decided by this court in

the case of Nidhi Yadav & Another Versus The State of

Rajasthan & Others, SBCWP No.11840/2019 decided on

18.10.2019 wherein this court has held as under:-

"In view thereof, sanctity has to be given to such examination and such result are not required to be lightly interfered. In the case of HP Public Service Commission Vs. Mukesh Thakur & Ors. rendered in AIR 2010 SC 2620 it was held:

"19. In view of the above, it was not permissible for the High Court to examine the question paper and answer sheets itself, particularly, when the Commission had assessed the inter-se merit of the candidates. If there was a discrepancy in framing the question or evaluation of the answer, it could be for all the candidates appearing for the examination and not for respondent No. 1 only. It is a matter of chance that the High Court was examining the answer sheets relating to law. Had it been other subjects like physics, chemistry and mathematics, we are unable to understand as to whether such a course could have been adopted by the High Court."

7. The same view was expressed by the Hon'ble Supreme Court

in the case of Vikesh Kumar Gupta (supra) wherein it was held

as under:-

"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

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the serious damage caused to administration due to lack of sufficient personnel.

Even otherwise, prima facie, this Court finds that the petitioner has placed the excerpts relating to the third Edition which is not original edition as written by Hameer Rao known as Hameer Raso. This third Edition as per the Editor is the revised Edition written by Jodhraj and Shivnath thereto word used is Ranthambh. Thus, the answer assessed by the Rajasthan Subordinate and Ministerial Service Selection Board cannot be said to be in any manner incorrect. Similarly, the other questions which the learned counsel relies to be incorrect also does not require to be interfered with on the aforesaid ground.

The writ petition is found to be devoid of merit and the same is accordingly dismissed."

8. It may be noticed that in the revised answer key, answer of

Question No.05 has been changed from B to A and certain other

questions have been deleted by the examining authority which

goes to show that the examining authority has already consulted

experts on the objections raised by the candidates and has taken

a decision. In such event, this Court would not substitute its

opinion to that of experts which was relied upon for issuing of

revised answer key. No case for appointing an expert committee

again is thus made out as it would amount to again raising

questions to the opinion of an expert which were relied upon for

revising of the answer key. There will be no end to such queries

and no answer key can be ever finalized at this belated stage, the

settled position cannot be allowed to be unsettled.