Telangana High Court

Akkam Ganesh And 9 Others vs The State Of Telangana And Another on 22 December, 2022

Bench: E.V. Venugopal

          THE HON'BLE SRI JUSTICE E.V.VENUGOPAL

    W.P.Nos.40381, 41113, 41559, 42031 & 42730 of 2022

COMMON ORDER:
1     Heard Sri Ch.Srikanth and Sri Ramesh Chilla, learned

counsel for the writ petitioners.


2     Since the point involved in all these writ petitions is one and

the same, all these writ petitions are being disposed of by way of

this common order.


3     In all the writ petitions, the common case of the petitioners is

that they appeared for Group-I preliminary examination conducted

by the second respondent on 16.10.2022. Petitioners were

supposed to encode / bubble the hall ticket numbers, exam centre

code, test booklet code at the columns given the Optical Mark

Recognition (OMR) sheets so also to encode / bubble the answers

for each question using the prescribed ball point pen. Accordingly,

the petitioners have bubbled the hall ticket number on their

respective answer sheets and had also manually written their

respective hall ticket numbers above the bubbling - a column

specified for the same. The petitioners completed encoding the

answers in the OMR sheets. Most of the petitioners who mistakenly

bubbled the hall ticket number have bubbled Zero instead of 1 and

1 instead of Zero and a few petitioners bubbled again the correct

number as no alternative was provided to them. The petitioners

submitted their representations to the second respondent. While

being so, the second respondent informed all the petitioners that

their OMR sheets cannot be considered due to the error in

bubbling the hall ticket. The grievance of the petitioners is that it

is not the case of the respondents not being able to identify the

OMR sheets of the petitioners due to the mistake in bubbling the

hall ticket number and the correct OMR sheets being made

available on the website and the same being accessible using the

hall ticket number of individual petitioner bears testimony of the

fact that the petitioners' OMR sheets are very much intact and

assigned to their respective hall ticket number.

4 The second respondent filed counter affidavit contending

that the petitioners applied to the said notification having

consented to the terms and conditions/instructions stipulated

therein, including the instructions pertaining to the OMR answer

sheet. The respondents emphasized that no request for

reconsideration of such rejected / invalidated cases will be

entertained. It is further submitted that the candidates were

instructed to ask the invigilator for replacement if there is any

defect in the Test Booklet or OMR answer sheet and as such there

is no stipulation of providing a buffer answer sheet to the

candidates. It is also stressed that the OMR answer sheets will be

invalidated on wrong / erroneous / incomplete darkening /

shading of hall tickets and it will lead to invalidation of candidates.

If the Test Booklet Number is encoded incorrectly, as such OMR

scans cannot be valuated by the machine to valuate the questions

in the Test Booklet Number. Similarly, when the candidate fails to

bubble the Booklet number on OMR sheet, it is not possible to

value his / her OMR answer sheet as there are different sets of

answer keys for different Booklet numbers for different question

papers, as the machine cannot determine the correct Booklet

number and as a consequence, such OMR answer sheets are

invalidated.

5 It is the specific contention of the respondents that

identifying the correct Booklet number involves checking the

examination records like nominal roll, attendance sheets which

requires physical verification of the OMR answer sheets and

records. This cannot be done as TSPSC dispensed with the manual

intervention for evaluation by replacing it with electronic

evaluation. Further, if thousands of candidates who made similar

mistakes seek the same benefit of manual verification of other

relevant records to determine the exact Booklet number of the

candidates, such a situation is fraught with the ills of manual

intervention besides delaying the recruitment process.

6 It is further submitted that out of all the candidates who

appeared for the examination on 16.10.2022, a total number of

9932 wrong bubbling cases were identified by the scanner where

the candidates made mistakes while encoding - scratching of

bubbles / erroneous bubbling etc., while filling the Hall Ticket

Number / Test Booklet number on OMR sheet.

7 The learned counsels for the petitioners submitted that the

very purpose of enabling the candidates to manually write the Hall

Ticket Numbers is to verify the OMR sheets manually in case there

arise any error in the OMR sheets either mechanical or human

error. Since in any event, the second respondent made avail of

identifying OMR sheets in both manual manner and automated

manner using computer system and in such a case erroneous

bubbling in respect of Hall Ticket Number or question paper code

under first part of the OMR sheet should not hammer the fate of

the petitioners basing on the instructions which are not supported

by any statutory provision and availing petitioners to identify their

question sheets in both ways and valuating the said answer sheets

in only automated / mechanical procedure, which is arbitrary

exercise of power. It is also submitted that the invigilators were

instructed to verify the incorrectness of the errors so occurred and

permit the candidates to make corrections, upon which, the

invigilator was to endorse to remove any such discrepancy.

8 On the other hand, the learned Government Pleader for the

respondents submitted that Courts could not overlook the

mandatory nature of instructions issued by the Commission that

would be binding on all candidates and that once an instruction

has been issued by the Commission, the same will have to be

treated as mandatory in nature and require strict compliance

without any exception. The learned Government Pleader further

vehemently contended that when TSPSC has prescribed certain

method and mode, the candidates must follow the same method in

letter and spirit but they cannot deviate in any manner and relied

upon a decision of the Hon'ble Apex Court in Union of India Vs.

Mahendra Singh1 wherein it was held at para No.14 as follows:

"......It is well settled that if a particular procedure in filling up the application form is prescribed, the application form should be filled up following that procedure alone. This was enunciated by Privy Council in the Nazir Ahmad vs. King Emperor2 wherein it was held that "that where a power is given to do a certain thing in a certain way the thing must be done in that way or not at all. Other methods of performance are necessarily forbidden."

9 The learned Government Pleader also relied on a decision of

the Hon'ble Apex Court in State of Tamil Nadu Vs.

G.Hemalathaa3 wherein at para No.12 it was held as follows:

"After giving a thoughtful consideration, we are afraid that we cannot approve the judgment of High Court as any order in favour of the candidate who has violated the mandatory instructions would be laying down bad law......"

10 As can be summed up from the factual matrix, the issue

involved in all these writ petitions relates to the mistakes

committed by the petitioners while bubbling the circles meant for

Hall ticket numbers. In the light of the above facts, it has to be

seen whether the mistake stated to have been committed by the

petitioners was committed advertently or inadvertently and

whether the petitioners are entitled for any relief in the present writ

petitions.

1 2022 LawSuit (SC)863 2 1936 SCC OnLine PC 41 3 2019 LawSuit (SC) 1539

11 It is an admitted and undisputable fact that the Commission

has placed a sample OMR sheet on its website for the purpose of

candidates' convenience, so that they can practice on the sample

OMR answer sheet before going to the examination. The relevant

paras of the instructions make it clear that the encoding or

bubbling in the original OMR sheet would be final and no claim

would be entertained. It was also clearly stated that forgetting to

bubble any code will not entail the evaluation of answer scripts. So

at every stage, the respondents have put the petitioners as well as

the candidates who appear for the examination on notice about the

mode of bubbling. So the petitioners cannot claim excuse or cannot

also plead ignorance. The contention of the learned counsel for the

petitioners that the petitioners were under confusion also cannot

be countenanced since the petitioners were conscious of the things

to be done even prior to the examination.

12 It is to be borne in mind that the petitioners in these cases

were appearing for Group-I examinations. So, besides knowledge

and expertise on the syllabus, they should have basic knowledge

about the mode of answering / bubbling the OMR sheets as well,

which aspect also elicit the intricate mental ability of the candidate

appearing for the examination.

13 Further, as could be seen from the counter affidavit of the

respondents, a total number of 9932 wrong bubbling cases were

identified out of 2.85 lakh candidates who wrote the examination

have committed this type of mistakes. In such circumstances, if

the plea of the petitioners is to be considered, such an exercise will

jeopardize the interests of 97% candidates who have bubbled

correctly as per instructions. Therefore, question of violation of

principles of natural justice or equity also does not apply to the

facts and circumstances of the present case. On this point I am

fortified by the judgment of a Division Bench of this Hon'ble Court

in TSPSC Vs. Pothula Durga Bhavani (W.A.No.1369 of 2018 & Batch

dated 19.07.2021) wherein the division bench in unequivocal terms

held at para No.15 as follows:

"15. The submission made by learned counsel for the petitioners that the errors committed by the petitioners of wrong bubbling/double bubbling and/or absence of bubbling in the hall ticket numbers are bona fide errors and can be easily corrected, is untenable. Tough as it may sound, compassion or generosity of the heart has no place in public examinations conducted by an Examination Regulatory Authority like the TSPSC. The petitioners ought to have carefully read the instructions issued by the TSPSC and correctly filled in their personal details, hall ticket number etc., in the OMR sheet, as mandated. Once it is admitted that the entries made were inaccurate due to which the answer sheets of the petitioners were not evaluated and in view of the fact that evaluation in such cases is an electronic process undertaken through scanners, with no human intervention, we are of the opinion that no directions can be issued to the TSPSC to conduct manual scanning of the weeded out answer scripts to collate and declare the results of the petitioners."

14 Taking the totality of circumstances into consideration and

having regard to the facts and circumstances and in the light of the

principle enunciated in Mahendra Singh (2 supra) and

G.Hemalathaa (3 supra) more particularly the judgment of the

division bench of this Hon'ble Court in Pothula Durga Bhavani

case, this Court is of the considered view that though the craving of

the writ petitioners is understandable, but this Court is bound by

the judgment of the division bench of this Court in Pothula Durga

Bhavani case (supra) and hence constrained to come to the rescue

of the writ petitioners.

15 In the result, the writ petitions are dismissed at the stage of

admission. No order as to costs.