A non-party can maintain an appeal if the judgment affects their legal rights, but must show prejudice or that the judgment affected their legal rights.

JUDGMENT :

Harish Tandon, J.

The solitary question involved herein is whether a non party of the proceeding can prefer an appeal against the judgment when the findings are entirely to its benefit except that such benefit should be extended to all and the sundry, in other words, whether a non party can maintain an appeal only for the purpose of extending benefit of the decision rendered by the Single Bench without being prejudicially affected thereby.

2. Before adverting to the said issue, the salient facts of the instant case are required to be adumbrated as under:-

3. A flurry of writ petitions were launched by various aspiring candidates challenging certain questions to have been wrongly translated in Bengali language and wrong answers were given in the answer key in the Teacher Eligibility Test (T.E.T), 2014 held on 11th October, 2015. The multiple choice questions were required to be answered by the aspiring candidates in OMR sheet to be darkened by the candidates for smooth, speedy and transparent evaluation of the answers by use of technology. The question paper which was originally framed in the English language was also translated in Bengali and other languages but we are primarily concerned with the Bengali translation of the English and the answer key subsequently published by the recruiting agencies. An information was furnished by the recruiting agencies on an application made under Right to Information Act, 2005 and the question paper, OMR sheet and answer key were also provided to the applicants. It was detected that certain questions in Section-I, Language I, Bengali subject and child development and pedagogy sections were incorrectly answered and some of the questions were found to have been wrongly translated in bengali language; the opinion was sought from a renowned scholar of the bengali literature as well as the relevant subject, who opined that the answer to those questions as disclosed in the answer key were incorrect. The aforesaid opinion emboldened various aspiring candidates to approach the Court by filing the writ petition not only for ascertainment by the external experts on those multiple choice O.M.R type tests and wrong key answers supplied by the paper setters, but also for re-assessment and or revaluation of the O.M.R sheets pertaining to those wrong questions as well as answers thereto.

4. In course of an argument the Learned Advocate appearing for the Board fairly submits that the matter may be referred to the vice chancellor of the Biswa Bharati University to appoint an expert in the relevant subject for examining the correctness of the translated questions and the key answers assigned to it. Pursuant to the same the vice chancellor of the said university appointed the expert and sought for their opinion on such issue and the same was placed before the Single Bench. The reports of the experts are succinctly jotted down in the impugned order and ultimately the Single Bench held :-

"Considering the above discussions and after perusing the expert reports I direct the Secretary, West Bengal Board of Primary Education to award marks to the petitioner/petitioners who attempted the wrong question/options in the key answers of JGB question booklet series. After awarding marks if it is found that the petitioner / petitioners is/ are otherwise eligible then the Secretary is further directed to take steps to give appointment to the petitioner/ petitioners in accordance with law against the available vacant post of Assistant Teacher/Teachers."

5. The petitioner is not aggrieved by the findings recorded by the Single Bench as in his opinion it inures to his benefit as well, but the center of argument is hovering around the further directions passed in the impugned order to the extent that the benefit of such findings/judgment is restricted to the writ petitioners, whose writ petitions were disposed of by the impugned order.

6. The first and foremost point of attack in the instant appeal is that the findings / j