The court confirmed that, absent evidence of arbitrary marking, the recruitment process for Civil Judges was valid under constitutional provisions, indicating strict evaluation criteria were applied uniformly.

JUDGMENT :

Dhananjaya Y Chandrachud, CJI

1. A hundred and nine Petitioners have invoked the jurisdiction of this Court under Article 32 of the Constitution. The Petitioners are candidates who appeared for the main examination of the Rajasthan Civil Judge Cadre 2024 which was conducted on 31 August 2024 and 1 September 2024. Their grievance is that they have been awarded marks arbitrarily in the subjective exam paper, namely, the Language Paper – II (English Essay) which has led to them falling below the cut off marks for the interview round. A petition for special leave is also preferred against an order of the High Court of Rajasthan dated 19 October 2024 dismissing a Writ Petition under Article 226 of the Constitution on identical issues in light of these proceedings having commenced before this Court. The Petitioners seek the quashing of the results of the main exams and re- evaluation of the answer sheets by an expert committee. Since the issues are identical, the petitions are being disposed of together.

Factual Background

2. The RAJASTHAN JUDICIAL SERVICES RULES 2010¹[‘RJS Rules’] stipulate that recruitment to the posts of Civil Judges shall be made directly on the basis of a competitive examination.²[Rule 16, RJS Rules.] The scheme of the selection process takes place in three stages, namely, (i) the preliminary examination; (ii) the main examination; and (iii) the interview round.³[ Rule 20, RJS Rules] The scheme of the written examination is provided in Schedule IV of the RJS Rules. The High Court of Rajasthan issued an Advertisement numbered RHC/Exam Cell/RJS/CJC/2024/783 which notified the Civil Judge Cadre 2024 examination to fill two hundred and twenty-two vacancies.

3. The Petitioners qualified at the preliminary examination which was conducted on 23 June 2024. The main examination was divided into four parts, namely, (i) Law Paper – I (Civil); (ii) Law Paper – II (Criminal); (iii) Language Paper – I (Hindi Essay); and (iv) Language Paper – II (English Essay). The law papers were to be marked out of one hundred each and the language papers were to be marked out of fifty each. Three questions were required to be answered in the English Essay. For all candidates, the first question was assessed by a District Judge level officer while the second question and the third question respectively were directed to be assessed by distinct sets of English Professors working in a Government College to ensure the fairness of the process.

4. The RJS Rules stipulate that the minimum cut off marks in law papers for qualifying for the viva voce shall be 35% for the unreserved category and 30% for the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe categories. Candidates must have an aggregate of 40% (35% for SC/ST candidates) to be eligible for the interview. No minimum marks are stipulated for language papers.

5. The Petitioners appeared for the examination on 31 August 2024 and 1 September 2024. The results were declared on 1 October 2024. Six hundred and thirty-eight candidates qualified for the interview stage of the recruitment process. When the Petitioners received their score cards on 4 October 2024, they noticed that their marks in the Language Paper-II (English Essay) were fatally low – ranging between zero and fifteen out of fifty marks. Aggrieved by the award of low marks in the English Essay, the Petitioners moved this Court for re-evaluation of the answer papers by an expert committee and setting aside of the results which were notified on 4 October 2024.

6. The question which arises for consideration is whether there is any arbitrary variation in the marks obtained by candidates in the language examination which may affect the integrity of the overall results of the