Uttarakhand High Court
SPA/238/2022 on 1 August, 2022
IN THE HIGH COURT OF UTTARAKHAND
AT NAINITAL
HON'BLE THE CHIEF JUSTICE SRI VIPIN SANGHI
AND
HON'BLE SRI JUSTICE R.C. KHULBE
01ST AUGUST, 2022
SPECIAL APPEAL No. 238 OF 2022
Between:
Pawan Nainwal and others.
...Appellants
and
State of Uttarakhand and another.
...Respondents
Counsel for the appellants. : Mr. Dushyant Mainali, the learned
counsel.
Counsel for the respondent no. 1. : Mr. K.N. Joshi, the learned Deputy
Advocate General for the State of
Uttarakhand.
Counsel for the respondent no. 2. : Mr. Ashish Joshi, the learned counsel.
JUDGMENT : (per Sri Vipin Sanghi, C.J.)
The present Special Appeal is directed against
the judgment dated 07.07.2022, rendered by the
learned Single Judge in a batch of Writ Petitions,
including Writ Petition (S/S) No. 410 of 2022, which had
been preferred by the appellants herein. The learned
Single Judge has dismissed all the Writ Petitions, which
were dealt with simultaneously on account of the fact
that similar grievances were raised by all the petitioners.
2. The respondents conducted a public
examination, namely, the Combined State (Civil) Lower
Subordinate Service Examination-2021. The petitioners,
including the appellants herein also, participated in the
said examination. The cut-off marks, for the
economically weaker section candidates, were fixed at
105 marks. The writ petitioners-appellants secured less
than 105 marks out of 150 in the preliminary
examination. The examination consisted of 150 Multiple
Choice Questions in the preliminary examination.
3. It appears that when the answer-key, to the
question paper, was made public, and objections invited,
the Expert Committee went into the objections and
found that 12 questions were erroneous. The
respondents then took a policy decision to delete the
said 12 questions, and to award 12 bonus marks for the
said 12 questions to all the candidates. The petitioners
before the learned Single Judge, including the appellants
herein, raised the grievance that the methodology
adopted by the respondents had resulted in other
candidates stealing a march over them, even though,
according to the petitioners, they were more
meritorious. The marking scheme for the examination
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was that one mark was awarded for each correct
answer, and negative mark, i.e. -0.25 (minus 0.25), was
awarded for every wrong answer. The petitioners
contended that the process of awarding bonus marks to
all the candidates meant that, even those candidates,
who have not attended the said 12 questions, were
awarded marks for those questions. The petitioner, in
particular, raised a grievance in respect of Question No.
91, set out in Question Booklet Series (C), which reads
as follows :-
"91. As per census 2011, in India per 1000 males,
the number of females is:-
(a) 910 (b) 940 (c) 920 (d) 980"
4. According to the petitioners, the correct
answer for the said question was option (b) i.e. 940.
Yet, the model answer, which was also the option (b),
was treated as incorrect for no rhyme or reason, and
one mark was awarded in respect of the said question to
all the candidates, while deleting the said question.
5. The learned Single Judge considered the
submissions of the petitioners, and did not find any
merit in the same. The learned Single Judge placed
reliance on the decisions of the Supreme Court in H.P.
Public Service Commission v. Mukesh Thakur,
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(2010) 6 SCC 759; Central Board of Secondary
Education v. Khusboo Shrivastava and others,
(2014) 14 SCC 523, and; Vikesh Kumar Gupta v.
State of Rajasthan, (2021) 2 SCC 309, wherein the
Supreme Court has repeatedly frowned upon the High
Court sitting as the Super Expert Committee, over the
decision taken by an Expert Committee consisting of
academicians, to conclude whether answers, to the
questions posed in the examination, were correct, or
not.
6. The learned Single Judge also referred to the
decision of the Supreme Court in Punjab State
Cooperative Milk Producers Federation Ltd. v.
Balbir Kumar Walia, (2021) 8 SCC 784, wherein the
Supreme Court stated the law with regard to judicial
review over administrative decisions, by placing reliance
upon Tata Cellular v. Union of India, (1994) 6 SCC
651.
7. The submission of learned counsel for the
appellants before us is, firstly, focused on the aforesaid
Question No. 91, set out in Question Booklet Series (C).
Learned counsel submits that the appellants had
produced conclusive documents before the learned
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Single Judge to show that option (b), i.e. 940, was the
correct answer. Even before us, learned counsel has
produced a compilation of documents, wherein the
overall sex ratio, at the National level, has been noted to
have been increased by 7 points since Census 2001 to
reach 940 at Census 2011. Since the aforesaid
documents were placed before us, we passed over the
matter to enable the learned counsel for the respondent
no. 2 to take instructions.
8. The learned counsel for the respondent no. 2
has taken instructions, and has pointed out that the
documents, produced by the learned counsel for the
appellants, only contain the provisional figures of the
2011 Census. He has also produced documents founded
upon the Census of India 2011. The document produced
is titled "Population Projections for India and States
2011-2036". The same is a report of the Technical
Group on Population Projections, and was published in
November, 2019. The same mentions the sex ratio of
women during 2011 as 943. The compilation produced
also contains a bar chart of sex ratio of females per
1000 males, as published by Census Info India 2011 -
5
"Final Population Totals", which also mentions the total
sex ratio of females as 943 per 1000 males.
9. It, indeed, appears that the documents
produced by the appellants contain only the provisional
figures, and not the final figures of the 2011 Census.
This explains the figure of 940, being mentioned as the
sex ratio of women per 1000 males.
10. The aforesaid instance only fortifies the view
that once an Expert Committee, consisting of
academicians, has examined the questions; the model
answer-key; and the objections thereto, it is not for this
Court to sit in judgment over the decision of the said
Expert Committee. This is the position, which also
emerges from the decisions of the Supreme Court noted
above, and which have also been relied upon by the
learned Single Judge, and quoted in extenso in the
impugned judgment.
11. The next submission of the learned counsel for
the appellants is that the award of bonus marks to even
those candidates, who did not attend the 12 questions
which were found to be erroneous, was unjustified.
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12. We do not find any merit in this submission for
the reason that there was negative marking of -0.25
marks for every wrong answer. Therefore, a candidate,
who may be aware of the correct answer to a question,
which is erroneous, would not mark one of the options
only to be awarded negative marks to the extent of
-0.25.
13. Another submission of learned counsel for the
appellants is that, in another examination process, the
Examining Body deleted the erroneous questions, and
proportionately worked out the percentages of the
candidates on the basis of the remaining questions. The
submission is that the candidates should have been
marked on the basis of 138 questions, since 12
questions were found to be erroneous and deleted.
14. We do not find any fault in the methodology
adopted by the respondents, as all the candidates have
been treated equally by awarding 12 bonus marks to all
of them, including the writ petitioners-appellants. There
is nothing to say that only one methodology may be
adopted by the Examining Body. We are not called upon
to interfere with the methodology, since the same does
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not appear to be arbitrary or irrational, and as it appeals
to us as one of the correct approaches.
15. The appellants have also raised a challenge to
the decision of the Expert Committee in respect of
several other questions, but we are not inclined to get
into that issue at all.
16. For the aforesaid reasons, we do not find any
merit in the present Special Appeal, and the same is,
accordingly, dismissed.
17. In sequel thereto, pending application, if any,
also stands disposed of.
________________
VIPIN SANGHI, C.J.
_____________
R.C. KHULBE, J.
Dt: 01st August, 2022
Rahul
