JUDGMENT

Ashutosh Kumar, J. - Heard Mr. Anil Kumar Singh and Mr. Sandip Kumar, learned counsel for the petitioners and Mr. Awadhesh Kumar, learned counsel for the respondents.

2. The petitioners had approached this Court initially as no decision was being taken by the Vice Chancellor of the Arayabhatta Knowledge University on the representations preferred by them for re-evaluation / retotaling of their answer sheets.

3. During the pendency of the writ petition and after first hearing before this Court, the petitioners were intimated that their answer-sheets had been sent for reevaluation / re-totaling before the grievance committee, constituted for the purpose and based on that report, which indicated that there was no need for any interference with the marks allotted to the petitioners, the Vice Chancellor rejected the contention of the petitioners that interference in the assessment was required.

4. The aforesaid order of the Vice Chancellor dated 15.09.2020 is under challenge.

5. Learned counsel for the petitioners have taken great pains to demonstrate before this Court that there was no proper assessment of their answer-sheets and almost all the petitioners, who have had brilliant academic record, have failed by slender margin in one or the other papers. To support their contentions, the petitioners have brought on record the answer-sheets which they have obtained under the R.T.I. and have raised grievance that there are no internal markings; there is evidence of interpolation in the O.M.R. sheets and at many places, the re-writing /cuttings have not been countersigned. In one of the papers brought on record by one of the petitioners, there is an apparent mistake in addition of marks awarded in different questions. The initial plea of the petitioners was that the Vice Chancellor had apparently told them that no interference would be made without the intervention of the Court but shortly thereafter, they were intimated, as noted above, that their answer-sheets were sent to a duly constituted committee which had reported that there was no need of reevaluation, re-look or re-totaling.

6. However, the petitioners are very vehement in their contention that such an order under Section 21 D of the Statutes of the University by the Vice Chancellor came at the most inopportune time i.e. only after first hearing in the writ petition was done. Learned counsel for the petitioners, therefore state that the order impugned is mechanical and appears to have been taken out of rigid stand that the decision of the University cannot be faulted with by the students / petitioners / examinees.

7. Mr. Anil Kumar Singh, learned counsel for some of the petitioners has raised an additional ground that according to the Medical Council of India Post Graduate Medical Education Regulation 2000, as amended upto date in 2018, there is a mandatory requirement of appointing / hiring at least four examiners in each subject, out of which, at least fifty percent are compulsorily to be the external examiners. The rules further mandate that the external examiners have to fulfill certain criteria, which have been listed in the rules. Only under exceptional circumstances, examination could be held with lesser than four examiners ( three examiners) and that also when two of them are external examiners. In that event, the Medical Council of India is required to be intimated about the justification of conducting examination in that manner and in that case, result shall be published with the approval of Medical Council of India.

8. Mr. Singh, learned advocate contends that the aforesaid requirement is not optional ; rather mandatory. The petitioners claim that if such requirement has not been fulfilled, the entire evaluation, then, becomes suspect in the eyes of law, even if it be with respect to the entire batch, which may have many such examinees.

9. Faced with such an argument, this Court directed the learned counsel for the Arayabhatta Knowledge University to provide the l