JUDGMENT :

1. This petition under Article 226 of the Constitution of India is filed with the following prayers: -

“(A) Direct the GPSC to give additional marks to the petitioners for having answered correctly the Question No. 81 of Paper No. 1 and Question No. 160 of Paper No. 2, as the case may be and consequently direct the GPSC to revise the final result considering the fact that the petitioners have correctly answered the above referred question and thereby direct the respondent authorities to consider the case of the petitioner for appointment on the post of Assistant Conservator of Forest, Class-II pursuant to the advertisement at Annexure-A to this petition, or in the alternative.

(B) Quash and set aside the final answer key to Question No. 81 of Paper No. 1 and Question No. 160 of Paper No. 2 and direct the GPSC to publish the revised provisional result with the corrected answer key, and

(C) Pending admission and final disposal of this petition, the Honourable Court may be pleased to direct the GPSC to permit the petitioners to participate in the main examination as well as oral interview for appointment to the post of Assistant Conservator of Forest, Class-II pursuant to the advertisement at Annexure-A to this petition, and

(D) Pending admission and final disposal of this petition the Honourable Court may be pleased to direct the respondent authorities to consider the case of the petitioners for awarding additional marks to the petitioners for having attempted the question/s correctly, and

(E) Award the cost of this petition, and

(F) Grant any other relief or pass any other order which the Honourable Court may consider just and proper.”

2. The case of the petitioners in brief is as follows:

(i) The respondent No. 2 – Gujarat Service Public Commission (for short ‘GPSC’) issued advertisement No. 12 of 2022-23, inviting applications for appointment to the post of Assistant Conservator of Forest, Class-II. As per the advertisement, in all 38 vacancies are sought to be filed for the said post. The petitioners as were eligible for appointment to the post in question, applied and filled online form. Pursuant to their applications, the petitioners were called for appearing in preliminary examination scheduled on 30.10.2022. The preliminary examination consists of two papers (i) General Studies-1 and (ii) General Studies-2, which consists of 200 objective type questions, to be answered in OMR sheet. All the petitioners participated in the preliminary examinations and performed well. It is their case that after the preliminary examination the GPSC published provisional answer key on 01.11.2022, inviting objections/suggestions from the candidates. The same objections were to be given on or before 08.11.2022.

(ii) It is the case of the petitioners that as there was discrepancy in relation to the provisional answer key published by GPSC for question Nos. 81 and 160, they raised their objections. It is case of the petitioners that for question No. 81, the correct answer as per provisional answer key is ‘C’, whereas according to the petitioners the correct answer is ‘A’. In other words, as per petitioners the correct answer for question No. 81 is ‘A’ instead of ‘C’. Similar is the situation in relation to question No. 160. It is the case of the petitioners that provisional answer key published in relation to question No. 160 ought to have been ‘A’ instead of ‘C’. In the objections raised, they have provided supportive material to show that the answer referred by them is correct.

(i