MAIN POINT
The Judge authoring the result of moderation adjudicating the same on judicial side – alarmingly irregular – tantamount to being a Judge in one's own cause.

JUDGMENT

VIKRAMAJIT SEN, J.

Leave granted.

2. Succinctly stated the significant and singular facts of the case are that the Writ Petitioner/Appellant was placed in the second position of the Written Test for recruitment to the cadre of the District Judge (Entry Level) through Direct Recruitment from the Bar-2012. Had her marks not been moderated from 55 per cent to 37 per cent in Paper No. II her aggregate marks would have been 307 which is higher than the candidate at Serial No. 1 by 6.5 marks; in other words, she was the topper in the Written Test comprising 5 papers. After moderation was carried out, [which it appears was conducted only in respect of Paper No. II], she stood disqualified from further consideration, i.e appearing for the final stage of selection, viz., the Interview/viva voce for the reason that obtainment of minimum marks of 40 per cent in each paper was the pre-requisite for being called for the Interview. These facts have struck us as extremely significant for the reason that a candidate who stood First in the Written Examination (in five papers) has not been found suitable for even being called for the final step in recruitment, i.e the Interview. It has been asserted by the Writ Petitioner/Appellant that she is a position-holder in the Calcutta University; she quite obviously also possesses extraordinarily high academic and scholastic merit. It has been vehemently contended before us, as also before the learned Single Judge and the learned Division Bench of the Calcutta High Court, that the moderation exercise has been undertaken even though it had not been notified or clarified at any stage that the examination would be subject to this scrutiny. Whilst the 2006 Guidelines were placed before and were duly approved by the Full Court, it appears that the 2012 Guidelines had not been placed before the Full Court but were followed by the three Judge Committee.

3. Learned Senior Counsel for the High Court of Calcutta has strenuously submitted that moderation has been carried out strictly in conformity with the decision of this Court in Sanjay Singh v. U.P Public Service Commission, Allahabad (2007) 3 SCC 720. It deserves to be immediately underscored that the Rules for that examination envisaged a moderation exercise whereas this feature is absent so far as the subject examination is concerned. We must immediately express the view that this argument has no merit since Moderation is merely a method to ensure that the marking or valuation is free from even unintended discrimination or inequality.

4. Learned Single Judge was of the opinion that the ratio of Sanjay Singh had not been comprehensively followed, in that neither was a Head Examiner appointed, nor was a meeting held for the purpose of discussing the question paper and the possible/model answer thereto. The learned Single Judge, therefore, found in favour of the Writ Petitioner/Appellant. The learned Single Judge had also noted that of the three examiners the junior-most judge have been appointed as the moderator. It was also emphasised by the learned Single Judge that instead of moderation, in fact a re-assessment of the answer book of the Writ Petitioner/Appellant of Paper No. II has been carried out. Noting that if the Appellant had received three marks more in Paper II even after moderation (i.e., a deduction of 15 marks instead of 18 marks) she would have qualified to participate in the viva voce/Interview, the learned Single Judge held that the Appellant was unjustifiably excluded from the zone of consideration and was, therefore, entitled to the relief as claimed in the petition. The direction that was issued was to award the Appellant 55 marks in Paper II (i.e without any moderation whatsoever) and to recast her position in the merit list accordingly; and further that the Selection Board should take her interview within the least possible time and if the Appellant did not qualify after the Interview the candidate who would be otherwise entitled as