IMPORTANT POINT
Judicial review can ensure fairness in examinations, but courts should refrain from detailed academic evaluations unless clear errors are evident.

JUDGMENT :

HARISH TANDON, J.

1. A piquant situation has arisen in the aforesaid mandamus appeals as to whether the Court should usurp the power of the statutory authority in an academic field in finding either the fault in framing the questions or in the answer keys in the competitive examination under the power of judicial review. At the first blush, we were not convinced at the interim stage with the submissions advanced by the respondents as we find that the scope or jurisdiction enshrined in the judicial review as succinctly laid down by the Apex Court in catena of decisions does not permit the directions passed by the Single Bench in the impugned order but after giving an anxious thought we find that several directions were passed at the inter locutory stage by the Single Bench which were duly complied by all the parties including the appellant and therefore, we felt it necessary to bring quietus to such issue in adopting a mechanism eroding any concept of ambiguity to prevail or may prevail into a large number of students in evaluating such answers. We are conscious that in today’s world the competition has become tougher and reached to a considerable height where a single mark or a fractional mark shall impact on the opportunity to the aspiring candidates to pursue the technical courses or to achieve the position in the recruitment/selection examination.

2. The law on the subject i.e., the scope of the jurisdiction exercised by the High Court under Article 226 of the Constitution has been succinctly laid down in the Three-Judge Bench decision of the Apex Court in case of Kanpur University, Through Vice-Chancellor & Ors. vs. Samir Gupta & Ors. (1983) 4 SCC 309, the Apex Court was considering the identical situation where the examination was conducted through a multiple choice question one of which is correct and the dispute was raised to the correctness of a choice given in the answer keys subsequently published. In one hand, the Apex Court observed that the controversy would not have arisen if the examining body do not publish the answer keys and the evaluation would remain secret but at the second breath, it was observed that it would have more ramification and the fairness shall be compromised in this regard and therefore, it would be proper to publish the answer keys which would bring transparency and the fairness in the entire system. It was highlighted that if the wrong choice/answer is accepted by the examining or the selection committee the wrong would continue and the candidate who has studied the subject and excel the knowledge and the proficiency therein, gave the correct answer would still be evaluated negatively. It was thus, held that the examiner or the State Government must find out the solution and adopts the policy uniformly in percolating the sense of fairness in their conduct in the following:

“15. The findings of the High Court raise a question of great importance to the student community. Normally, one would be inclined to the view, especially if one has been a paper-setter and an examiner, that the key answer furnished by the paper-setter and accepted by the University as correct, should not be allowed to be challenged. One way of achieving it is not to publish the key answer at all. If the University had not published the key answer along with the result of the Test, no controversy would have arisen in this case. But that is not a correct way of looking at these matters which involve the future of hundreds of students who are aspirants for admission to professional courses. If the key answer were kept secret in this case, the remedy would have been worse than the disease because, so many students would have had to suffer the injustice in silence. The publication of the key answer has unravelled an unhappy state of affairs to which the University and the State Government must find a solution. Their sense of fairness in publishing the key answer has given them an opportunity to have a closer look at the