The judgment reaffirms the principle that if a statute, rule, or regulation governing an examination does not permit re-evaluation or scrutiny of an answer sheet, the court may not permit re-evaluation, and the decision-making process of the examining body should be examined in a writ proceeding.

JUDGMENT

Manmohan, J. (Oral)

1. Present writ petition has been filed seeking a direction to the respondent to re-evaluate petitioner's answer to question 2(vii) of Paper-I of Delhi Judicial Services Mains Examination 2022 (hereinafter referred to as the "DJS Examination 2022") and to award her two marks against the same as well as to correctly record the marks awarded in question Nos.10 and 11 of Civil Law Paper II and enhance the overall score by four marks for the same and to recheck the answer of the petitioner to question No.15 of Civil Law Paper II and award her three additional marks.

2. Learned senior counsel for the petitioner states that the petitioner has been denied overall nine marks in the DJS Examination 2022. He states that the petitioner has been severely prejudiced since she has been placed at Scheduled Caste wait list No.1, when in fact she ought to have been in the merit list amongst the selected candidates in the DJS Examination 2022 result dated 24th March, 2023.

3. Learned senior counsel for the petitioner points out that in objective question 2(vii) of the Legal GK and English paper (Paper-I), the petitioner has been marked incorrectly. He states that the correct answer to the question 2(vii) of the Legal GK and English paper (Paper-I) is "False" which is evident from the plain reading of Article 21-A of the Constitution. He states that even though the petitioner answered correctly, yet she has been marked wrongly i.e., the petitioner was given no mark for the said question.

4. Learned senior counsel for the petitioner further states that in answers to question Nos. 10 and 11 of Part III of Civil Law Paper II, the petitioner was awarded 25 marks each. However, he states that in the summary table of marks, it has been wrongly mentioned as 23 instead of 25 and the petitioner has been deprived of four marks. He states that if comparison is made of numerical `3' written by the examiner on the other sheets, it would be apparent that the marks awarded to the petitioner were 25 each against question Nos.10 and 11.

5. Learned senior counsel for the petitioner also states that the first page of answer-sheet of Civil Law Paper-II reveals that initially the examiner calculated the total marks as 130 out of 200 as he inadvertently forgot the addition of 23 marks allotted to question No.15. Thereafter, the total marks were converted from 130 marks to 150 instead of 153 as it was easy to change/overwrite 130 into 150. He states that in order to justify these 150 marks, the 23 marks in answer to question No.15 was also changed to 20 marks not only on the main tabulation page but also in the answer sheet against question No. 15.

6. Per contra, learned counsel for the respondent states that reevaluation is prohibited according to sub-clause (3) of clause (D) of the Appendix to Rule 15 of Delhi Judicial Service Rules, 1970.

7. He further states that the petitioner's representation containing identical allegations was placed before the Hon'ble Examination Committee (DHJS & DJS) and the said Committee comprising seven Hon'ble Judges of this Court examined the matter in detail. The relevant extracts of the Minutes of the Meeting dated 25th May, 2023 duly approved by the Hon'ble the Chief Justice is reproduced hereinbelow: