Mr. Abhijay Negi vs State Of Rajasthan &
2022 Latest Caselaw 1618 UK

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                                 WPSB No. 239 of 2022
                                 Hon'ble Manoj Kumar Tiwari, J.

Hon'ble R.C. Khulbe, J.

Mr. Abhijay Negi, learned counsel for the petitioners.

Mr. N.S. Pundir, learned counsel for the respondent.

Petitioners participated in a selection for appointment to the post of Civil Judge (Junior Division). Petitioners have been declared unsuccessful in the preliminary examination by the respondent.

In the present writ petition, petitioners contend that answer to five objective type questions, given in earlier answer key, were wrongly deleted and in their place wrong answers have been marked as "right" in the revised answer key. Thus, petitioners' have questioned validity of answers indicated as "correct" in the revised answer key.

Learned counsel appearing for respondent, however, submits that validity of answers cannot be gone into in writ proceedings under Article 226 of the Constitution. He further submits that Hon'ble Supreme Court has held that in academic matters, Courts should lay their hands off, as these are matters to be dealt with by domain Experts. He further submits that out of four answers given to a question, which one is correct, can only be decided by subject Experts. It is further submitted that in view of objections received in response to the answer key, answer to certain questions were revised, but petitioners did not file objection, therefore, it is not open for the petitioners to question the revised answer key, when they had not filed any objection earlier. Learned counsel for the respondent has placed reliance upon a judgment rendered by Hon'ble Supreme Court in the case on Vikesh Kumar Gupta & another vs. State of Rajasthan & others, reported in (2021) 2 SCC 309. Relevant extract of the said judgment are extracted below:-

"13. The point that arises for the consideration of this Court is whether the revised select list dated 21-5-2019 ought to have been prepared on the basis of the 2nd Answer Key. The appellants contend that the wait list also should be prepared on the basis of the 3rd Answer Key and not on the basis of the 2nd Answer Key. The 2nd Answer Key was released by RPSC on the basis of the recommendations made by the expert committee constituted pursuant to the directions issued by the High Court. Not being satisfied with the revised select list which included only a few candidates, certain unsuccessful candidates filed appeals before the Division Bench which were disposed of on 12-3-20194. When the Division Bench was informed that the selections have been finalised on the basis of the 2nd Answer Key, it refused to interfere with the select list prepared on 17-9-2018. However, the Division Bench examined the correctness of the questions and the answer keys pointed by the appellants therein and arrived at a conclusion that the answer key to 5 questions was erroneous. On the basis of the said findings, the Division Bench directed RPSC to prepare the revised select list and apply it only to the appellants before it.

14. Though re-evaluation can be directed if rules permit, this Court has deprecated the practice of re-evaluation and scrutiny of the questions by the courts which lack expertise in academic matters. It is not permissible for the High Court to examine the question papers and answer sheets itself, particularly when the Commission has assessed the inter se merit of the candidates (H.P. Public Service Commission v. Mukesh Thakur). Courts have to show deference and consideration to the recommendation of the expert committee who have the expertise to evaluate and make recommendations (see Basavaiah v. H.L. Ramesh).

15. Examining the scope of judicial review with regards to re-evaluation of answer sheets, this Court in Ran Vijay Singh v. State of U.P. held that the court should not re-evaluate or scrutinise the answer sheets of a candidate as it has no expertise in the matters and the academic matters are best left to academics. This Court in the said judgment further held as follows: (Ran Vijay Singh case, SCC pp. 369-70, paras 31-32) "31. On our part we may add that sympathy or compassion does not play any role in the matter of directing or not directing re-evaluation of an answer sheet. If an error is committed by the examination authority, the complete body of candidates suffers. The entire examination process does not deserve to be derailed only because some candidates are disappointed or dissatisfied or perceive some injustice having been caused to them by an erroneous question or an erroneous answer. All candidates suffer equally, though some might suffer more but that cannot be helped since mathematical precision is not always possible. This Court has shown one way out of an impasse--exclude the suspect or offending question.

32. It is rather unfortunate that despite several decisions of this Court, some of which have been discussed above, there is interference by the courts in the result of examinations. This places the examination authorities in an unenviable position where they are under scrutiny and not the candidates. Additionally, a massive and sometimes prolonged examination exercise concludes with an air of uncertainty. While there is no doubt that candidates put in a tremendous effort in preparing for an examination, it must not be forgotten that even the examination authorities put in equally great efforts to successfully conduct an examination. The enormity of the task might reveal some lapse at a later stage, but the court must consider the internal checks and balances put in place by the examination authorities before interfering with the efforts put in by the candidates who have successfully participated in the examination and the examination authorities. The present appeals are a classic example of the consequence of such interference where there is no finality to the result of the examinations even after a lapse of eight years. Apart from the examination authorities even the candidates are left wondering about the certainty or otherwise of the result of the examination--whether they have passed or not; whether their result will be approved or disapproved by the court; whether they will get admission in a college or university or not; and whether they will get recruited or not. This unsatisfactory situation does not work to anybody's advantage and such a state of uncertainty results in confusion being worse confounded. The overall and larger impact of all this is that public interest suffers."

16. 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 12-3-2019. Reliance was placed by the appellants on Richal v. Rajasthan Public Service Commission. In the said judgment, this Court interfered 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.

17. 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 finalisation 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 regularisation. The other consequence resulting from delayed appointments to public posts is the serious damage caused to administration due to lack of sufficient personnel.

18. The submission made by the respondents that the appellants are not entitled to any relief as there is inordinate delay in approaching the Court is not necessary to be adjudicated upon in view of the findings in the preceding paragraphs.

19. It is clear from the statement filed by RPSC that there are vacancies existing which can be utilised for appointing the appellants. We are not inclined to give any direction except leaving it open to RPSC and the State Government to fill up the existing vacancies from the wait list in accordance with the merits of the candidates.

20. The selection process which was stalled in view of the interim order passed by this Court should be completed within a period of 8 weeks from today. The Division Bench by its judgment dated 12.03.2019 committed an error in recording findings on the correctness of 05 questions by holding the opinion of the experts to be wrong. We are not setting aside the judgment as we are informed that 05 out of 21 appellants therein have already been appointed and we are not inclined to upset their appointments."

From the aforesaid judgment, it is apparent that courts cannot undertake the exercise of assessment of questions for arriving at the correct answer, and these matters are to be left to be decided by subject Experts.

In the preliminary examination, in which petitioners were declared unsuccessful, question paper consisted of multiple choice questions, in which four answers were given to each question and candidates were required to indicate the option, which gave the correct answer. Sometimes, due to oversight, more than one option give correct answer to a given question and it also happens sometimes that none of the options to a given question gives correct answer. However, these are the matters which are to be decided by the Experts. This Court, while exercising power of judicial review, cannot substitute its opinion in place of that of subject Experts.

The question, whether option 'a' or 'b' gives correct answer to a given question, is ordinarily not justiciable, unless the answer given to a question is so absurd that any reasonable man of ordinary prudence would not accept it as correct answer.

In view of legal position, as discussed above, this Court is not inclined to interfere in the matter.

Accordingly, writ petition fails and is hereby dismissed. No order as to costs.

(R.C. Khulbe, J.) (Manoj KumarTiwari, J.) 25.05.2022 Aswal