Disputed questions of fact and elaborate evidence required for adjudication under Article 226 of the Constitution.

JUDGMENT

Prateek Jalan, J. - The proceedings in the matter have been conducted through video conferencing.

1. The petitioner was an aspirant for admission to the Indian Institutes of Technology and other engineering colleges. He participated in the Joint Entrance Examination ["JEE"] (Main) conducted by the National Testing Agency ["NTA"] in January 2020 and September 2020. The grievance of the petitioner is that the final scoresheet of the JEE (Main) examination published by the NTA in September 2020 wrongly reflects the percentile in which he was placed in the January 2020 examination.

2. Learned counsel for the parties inform me that the JEE (Main) examination was conducted in January 2020, and any candidate desiring to improve his/her performance was entitled to take the examination again in September 2020. A scoresheet was issued after the January 2020 examination, reflecting the percentile in which the candidate was placed in that round. Another scoresheet, issued after the September 2020 round, contained the candidate's result in both the rounds of the JEE (Main). The eligibility of the candidate to take the JEE (Advance) examination (necessary for admission to the IITs) was dependent on the better performance between the January 2020 session and the September 2020 session. The JEE (Main) examination is a computer-based examination conducted online. Candidates mark their responses to the questions electronically on OMR (Optical Mark Recognition) sheets, which are compared with the correct answers according to the NTA answer key. Prior to the declaration of results, NTA also uploads the answer key and the OMR sheets of the candidates, to enable consideration of any challenge to the answer key.

3. In the present case, the petitioner claims that he was placed in the percentile 98.8105888 in the January 2020 session. The petitioner has annexed a print-out of his scoresheet as Annexure - 2 to the writ petition (at page 23 of the paper book). He contends that this was the scoresheet downloaded by him from the NTA website in January 2020.

4. The petitioner thereafter took the JEE (Main) examination again in September 2020, whereafter a combined scoresheet was issued by the NTA, a copy whereof has been annexed to the writ petition at Annexure - 3 (at page 24 of the paperbook). In the combined scoresheet, the petitioner is shown to have been placed in percentile 51.8105888 in the January 2020 session and percentile 71.3367318 in the September 2020 session of the JEE (Main) examination. According to the petitioner, this is the result of a technical error on the part of NTA, and the combined scoresheet of September 2020 does not correctly reflect the percentile in which he was placed in the January 2020 session.

5. The NTA was added as a party (respondent No.3) to the present petition by an order dated 23.09.2020, and notice was issued to it, returnable on 24.09.2020. In the order dated 24.09.2020, the contention of NTA is recorded to the effect that the scoresheet which is attached at page no. 23 of the paperbook is a forged one, and NTA was directed to file the original scoresheet. By a further order dated 25.09.2020, the petitioner's contention that the scoresheet at page 23 is the correct scoresheet was also recorded, and the petitioner was permitted to appear in the JEE (Advance) examination held on 27.09.2020. It was further directed that the petitioner's result would not be declared without further orders of the Court, and that the petitioner would not be entitled to claim any equity on the account of the said order.

6. Pursuant to the order dated 24.09.2020, the NTA filed (vide diary no. 834002/2020) the original scoresheet of the petitioner, which was published after the January 2020 session. The copy of the scoresheet filed by the NTA shows that after the January 2020 session, the petitioner was in fact placed in percentile