The main legal point established in the judgment is the application of Rule X of the Amended Departmental Examination Rules for Income Tax Officers, 2009, which restricted the timeframe for seeking recounting of marks and prohibited re-evaluation of answer sheets for objective type papers. The judgment also highlighted the legal principle of laches and delays, emphasizing that delayed challenges to examination results may not warrant relief.

JUDGMENT :

SONIA GOKANI, J.

1. The petitioner seeks to challenge the judgment and order dated 05.04.2022 of the Central Administrative Tribunal in Original Application No.116 of 2015 dismissing the application by denying the petitioner the seniority of declaring him to be clearing the examination in the year 2011 with the following reliefs :

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a. Writ of Certiorari or Writ, order or direction in the nature of Ceriorari quashing the order dated 05.04.2022 of Central Administrative Tribunal in Original Application No.116/2015 dismissing original application of petitioner and by allowing petitioner benefit of seniority by declaring petitioner as pass in the result of the examination held in 2011, wherein he was declared as fail, due to wrong answer keys by the respondent no.3 and to allow all consequential benefits;

b. Pending further hearing and final disposal of this petition, to allow benefit of seniority by declaring petitioner as pass in the result of the examination held in 2011, wherein he was declared as fail, due to wrong answer keys by the respondent no.3 for all further promotions by DPC;

c. Pass any other order(s) as this Hon’ble Court may deem fit and more appropriate in order to grant interim relief to the petitioner;

d. Any other and further relief deemed just and proper be granted in the interest of justice;

e. To provide for the cost of this petition.”

2. Brief facts leading to the present petition are as follow:

2.1 The petitioner is a post graduate in a science stream (M.Sc.) who entered the service of Income Tax Department as direct recruit in the cadre of Inspector of Income Tax on 20.10.2008 in pursuance of the selection for the recruitment year 2005-06. He was granted the promotion to the post of Income Tax Officer by the order dated 22.12.2014. He had an unblemished service record.

2.2 While he was working as an Income Tax Inspector in Surat in September 2011, the respondent No.3 conducted a departmental examination for Income Tax Officer, which was for the promotion to the post of Income Tax Officer (ITO) as governed by the Amended Departmental Examination Rules for Income Tax Officers, 2009. They were made applicable from the year 2010 and onwards. The examination is held by the Director of Income Tax, New Delhi once in a year, on behalf of the CBDT, New Delhi. A CIT is nominated by the CCIT being the Cadre Controlling Authority which is responsible for the proper conduct of the departmental examination.

2.3 The departmental examination comprises of 4 papers having maximum 100 marks namely Paper-I Income Tax Law and Computation (Without Books), Paper-II Advanced Accountancy (Without Books), Paper-III Allied Laws (Without Books) and Paper-IV Income Tax and Accountancy (Combined Practical) (With IT Act and Rules). The Ist, IInd and IIIrd papers comprised of objective type questions and the IVth one i.e. Income Tax and Accountancy would be a subjective type questions.

2.4 To qualify in the departmental examination candidate is required to obtain minimum 50% marks in each subject and 50% marks in aggregate. The grace marks maximum are 7 under the provision.

2.5 The petitioner offered his candidature to take part in the departmental examination and when in the last week of December 2011, the result was uploaded in the official website, he could know that he was awarded 53 marks in the first paper, 48 marks + 2 grace marks for the second paper, 53 marks for the third paper and 43 marks for the fourth paper and hence, he was declared fail.

2.6 The petitioner since expected higher marks in the fourth paper and as Rules 2009 permitted him to seek recounting of the marks for the subjective type paper, he had immediately made an application on 06.01.2012 with its enclosures through proper channel praying for recounting of the marks of paper IV. The department on the basis of the aforesaid result of the departmental examination had come out with an office order dated 12.01.2012, whereby 35 candidates have been declared to have