The central legal point established in the given judgment is that the decision of the examining body cannot be a subject matter of judicial review on merits unless the same is palpably erroneous or is alleged to be actuated by malice or is capricious and arbitrary.

JUDGMENT :

[Amit Mahajan, J.]

1. The appellant National Testing Agency (hereafter ‘NTA’) has filed the present intra-court appeal impugning the judgment dated 09.12.2019 (hereafter ‘the impugned order’) passed by the learned Single Judge in Writ Petition (C) No. 8664/2019 (impugned order).

2. The UGC – NET Junior Examination was conducted by the appellant between 20th and 26th June 2019, and the scheduled date of the examination was fixed on 26.06.2019. The provisional answer key was put up on the website on 29.06.2019, and objections were invited from the candidates. A public notice in that regard was also published.

3. On 03.07.2019, the respondent raised objections with regard to the answers to question Nos. 19 and 80. All objections, including the objections raised by the respondent, were considered by the experts. The appellant accepted the objection raised by the respondent in respect to the answer to question No. 19 but declined the same with regard to question No. 80. This led the respondent to file the writ petition in this court, being W.P. (C) No. 8664 of 2019 seeking the following reliefs:

"(a) declare all the options of question no. 80 in the examination UGC-NET, 2019 as wrong and direct Respondent no. 2 to setting aside the alleged correct answer key with ID No. 646350107270, by cancelling the question and awarding equal number to all the examinees accordingly;

(b) direct Respondent no. 2 to consider the objections dated 03.07.2019 lodged by the Petitioner and redraw the result accordingly."

4. Question No. 80 and the options available by way of answer are stated as under:

Q.80. Who among the following analysed the naturalisation of connotative myths?

1. Michel Foucault

2. Roman Ingarden

3. J. Hillis Miller

4. Ronald Barthes"

5. According to NTA option No. 4 is the correct answer. The respondent had objected to the same, contending that the correct answer is not “Ronald Barthes” but “Roland Barthes”. It was contended that there was a spelling error in the first name of Mr Roland Barthes, and therefore option No.4 could not be considered as the correct option.

6. The learned Single Judge accepted that the answer to question No. 80 is not correct and there was a possibility of causing confusion in the minds of the examinees. It accordingly directed the appellant to remove question No. 80 from the consideration and allocate the requisite two marks to the respondent with consequential reliefs.

7. Ms Dolo, learned counsel appearing for NTA contended there was a minor spelling mistake in the first name of the “Roland Barthes, a well known critic, which was not material. Further, she submitted that the respondent, in any case, had selected option No.3, “J Hillis Miller” as the correct answer. Thus, it is apparent that the respondent was not mislead on account of the first name of Roland Barthes being misspelt. In terms of instructions given, the examinee was to select the apposite answer, and in the present case, the closest answer to the question asked was option No. 4 and not option No. 3. She submits that the objections raised by the respondents were considered by the experts and it was decided that the critic involved is known by his surname “Barthes” and not by his first name. She earnestly contended that even if there was an error in the first name of Mr. Barthes, the same would not have made any difference because the critic was known by his surname.

8. In the given facts, the only question to be addressed is whether the decision of NTA to reject the respondent’s objection to the answer to question 80 of UGC-NET Junior Examination, warranted any interference by this court.

9. Before proceedings further to address the said question, it would be apposite to refer to authorities regarding the scope of judicial review in such cases.

Scope of Judicial Review

10. In Kanpur University v. Samir Gupta: (1983) 4 SCC 309, the Supreme Court affirmed the decision of the Allahabad High Court, whereby relying on the views of exp