IMPORTANT POINT
The court established that discrepancies in examination marking must be addressed fairly for all candidates, emphasizing the importance of accurate answer keys in recruitment processes.

ORDER :

Ravindra V. Ghuge, J.

1. The Petitioner in the first Writ Petition No.4173/2024, is the Maharashtra Public Service Commission (herein after referred to as ‘the Commission’). Respondent Nos.1 and 2, are the State Authorities. Respondent No.3 is the original Applicant in Original Application No.1042/2023, before the learned Maharashtra Administrative Tribunal at Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar (herein after referred to as ‘the Tribunal’). Respondent Nos.4 and 5, were the Respondents before the Tribunal.

2. In the second Writ Petition No.4191/2024, the Petitioners were Respondent Nos.4 and 5 in Original Application No.1042/2023. The State of Maharashtra and the Commission, are the Respondents in this petition.

3. We have considered the strenuous submissions of the learned Advocates and the learned AGP. We have perused the voluminous petition paper books and the cited reports. While issuing notices, we had passed an order on 09.8.2024.

Background of the case

4. The Commission had published an advertisement dated 23.06.2022, for filling in various posts, including the posts of Sub Registrar/ Stamp Inspector (Grade I), vide a recruitment process under the advertisement. The individual Applicants and the Respondents were the candidates, who had participated in the said recruitment process. The original Applicant Yogesh Sopanrao Dawale, belongs to the Economically Weaker Section category (hereafter referred to as ‘EWS’). About 78 posts were available. Six were reserved for the EWS candidates. Several candidates had applied for the preliminary examination. 975 qualified for the main exam.

5. The issue before the Tribunal was with regard to question paper-I, under Set ‘C’, wherein, Question No.40 was the nucleus of the controversy. In question Set No.C, Question No.40 was posed with four answer options, out of which, one option was supposed to be the right answer. Grievance of the original Applicant was that, Question No.40 had two correct answers out of the four options and this led to a confusion amongst the students, who were appearing for the said exam. Hence, the issue was raised before the Tribunal that, the allotment of marks has suffered a discrepancy, since the model answer key prepared by the subject experts showed only one answer as being correct and three answers being wrong, when there were two answers which were actually correct and two other were wrong.

6. The result of the main examination was published on 21.12.2023. Thereafter, though the Presenting Officer before the learned Tribunal made the statement, on instructions, that no appointments would be made, the recommendations which were already forwarded by the Commission to the State Government, were accepted and acted upon by the Government, in defiance of the order of the Tribunal. The State appointed 77 candidates out of 78 posts available. Probably, one post was not filled in since one candidate (the Original Applicant) had appeared before the learned Tribunal by filing the Original Application.

Controversial Question

6. The learned Advocate for the original Applicant, Shri A.S. Deshpande, has brought to our notice that the subject experts had prepared a set of answer keys. When the said answer keys were found to be riddled with mistakes, the subject experts prepared a second Set of answer key (with corrections). This Set of answer key also contains mistakes, is the contention of the learned Advocate.

7. He, therefore, raises a question as regards the competency of the subject experts and further adds that the names of the subject experts were tendered in a sealed envelope before the learned Tribunal. However, the learned Tribunal had not opened the said envelope to peruse the names of the subject experts. In these matters before us, we have not called for the names of the subject experts and we have not shown any inclination towards opening the sealed envelope containing their names, which was tendered to the learned Tribunal.

8. We are reproducing the suspect Question No.