IMPORTANT POINT
Court should be reluctant to entertain plea of the key answers being incorrect.

JUDGMENT

Deepak Gupta, J. - Applications for impleadment are allowed.

2. Leave granted.

3. These appeals are being disposed of by a common judgment since they arise out of one judgment delivered by the High Court of Allahabad on 30.03.2018.

4. Briefly stated, the facts necessary for the decision of this case are that the appellant U.P. Public Service Commission (for short `the Commission') issued an advertisement on 22.02.2017 inviting applications for filling up vacancies in the Upper Subordinate Services of the State. The selection is conducted through a three stage test consisting of preliminary written examination, main examination and interview. Those candidates who clear the preliminary examination are entitled to appear in the main examination.

5. The preliminary examination consisted of two papers namely General Studies-I and General Studies-II. We are in this case concerned only with the General Studies-I paper which carried 200 marks and consists of 150 objective type questions with multiple choice answers. After the preliminary examination was conducted, key answers were published by the Commission. Many persons including the petitioners before the Allahabad High Court contended that some of the key answers were incorrect or that some of the questions had more than one correct answer.

6. It is not disputed before us that the Commission initially constituted two separate expert committees; one comprising of 15 experts and the other comprising of 18 experts. This was done even before the key answers were displayed on the official website of the Commission. After these two committees gave their expert opinion the key answers were uploaded on the official website of the Commission during the period 18.11.2017 to 23.11.2017. Objections to the key answers were to be submitted by 24.11.2017.

7. The Commission received 962 objections. The Commission constituted a committee consisting of 26 members to consider the objections raised by the candidates. This 26 member expert committee examined all the objections over a period of two days and, thereafter, on the basis of the recommendations of this committee 5 questions were deleted and the key answers of 2 questions were changed. As a consequence the result was declared on the basis of 145 questions. Thereafter, various candidates filed writ petitions in the Allahabad High Court wherein challenge was raised to the correctness of the key answers in respect of 14 questions. The High Court examined these questions and after elaborate discussion and reasoning negatived the prayer of the petitioners in respect of 11 questions but in respect of one question the High Court held that the question should be deleted; in respect of another question it held that there were two correct answers and in respect of one more question it disagreed with the view of the Commission and accepted the submission of the petitioners that the answer given in the key was incorrect. This judgment is under challenge in these appeals.

8. In the appeal filed by the Commission it has been urged that the High Court transgressed its jurisdiction and went beyond the scope of judicial review available in such cases and it should not have overruled the view of the Commission which was based on the report of two committees of experts. On the other hand one of the original writ petitioners in his appeal claims that as far as the question where the High Court has held more than one answer is correct, the same should be deleted and in respect of another question it is urged that the High Court wrongly accepted the answer of the Commission.

9. What is the extent and power of the Court to interfere in matters of academic nature has been the subject matter of a number of cases. We shall deal with the two main cases cited before us.

10. In Kanpur University, through Vice Chancellor and Others v. Samir Gupta and Others, (1983) 4 SCC 309, this Court was dealing with a case relating to the Combined Pre Medical Test. Admittedly, the exam