Amitava Roy, J.

1. Having unsuccessfully pleaded against the validity of the Manipur Civil Services Combined Competitive (Preliminary) Examination, 2012 conducted by the Manipur Public Service Commission (for short hereinafter referred to as the Commission), a preparatory segment of the process for recruitment to various posts encompassed therein, the writ petitioners seek redress against the judgment and order dated 05.01.2012 rendered in WP (C) No. 751 of 2010 (Imphal Bench). By the decision impugned, the relief of annulment of the aforementioned examination was declined, though, incidental directions in response to the cavil of incorrect/wrong evaluation of a few answers to the questions had been issued. We have heard Mr. P.K. Goswami, Senior Advocate for the appellants, Mr. H.N.K. Singh, Senior Advocate for the Manipur Public Service Commission (Imphal) and the learned Government Advocate, Manipur for Respondent No. 2.

2. The issues raised, demand an abridged version of the pleaded facts to provide the backdrop of the debate. The writ appellants (inter-changeably also referred to as the appellants/writ petitioners) along with others had responded to the advertisement No.2/2010 dated 25.11.2010 initiating the process for recruitment to 138 posts enumerated in 6(six) categories as mentioned therein detailing amongst others the conditions of eligibility of the candidates, the phases of their performance evaluation and the general scheme of the conduct thereof in noticeable details. In terms of the modalities set out thereunder, the writ appellants applied for the Manipur Civil Services Combined Competitive Examination, 2010 in the prescribed form supported by essential testimonials, whereafter, Manipur Civil Services Combined Competitive (Preliminary) Examination, 2010 (hereinafter for short referred to as the 'Preliminary Examination') was held on 11.09.2011, in which they appeared. The results of the Preliminary Examination were declared on 24.09.2011 and in all 725 candidates were declared to have passed and thereby adjudged to be eligible to take the Manipur Civil Services Combined Competitive (Main) Examination, 2010 (for short hereinafter referred to as the Main Examination). None of the appellants however was declared to have passed.

In the above factual premise, they invoked the writ jurisdiction of this Court to raze the Preliminary Examination, repudiating it to be vitiated by incurable illegalities rendering the same to be non est. The assailments discernible from their pleadings are paraphrased as herein-below:

(a) 24 questions (Question Nos. 146 to 169 of set - B) had been copied and pasted en bloc from a website i.e. http:P/cbseadda.blogspot.com/2011/05/cbse-science-quize.html out of which one question namely Question No. 167 was wrong. This demonstrated a high probability of leakage of questions to the advantage of the candidates whom the Commission was inclined to favour.

(b) 11 questions were copied and pasted from a magazine "News and Events" (August, 2011 issue) with errors without any correction and lifted in bulk from the said magazine. This also suggested a strong possibility of leakage of the said questions.

(c) Questions in pages No. 25 - 26 of Booklet -A, pages No. 5 - 6 of Booklet - B, pages No. 11 - 12 of Booklet - C, pages No. 19 - 20 of Booklet - D were cut and replaced by pasting manually. Not only this evidently compromised with the mandate of secrecy in such a process, out of 30 questions involved, one was evidently wrong.

(d) In Booklet 13261 (series - A), pages 25 and 26 (1 sheet) had been repeated of which one sheet was cut and pasted and the other was as originally included. Page No. 23-24(1 sheet) was missing in the Booklet. Thus, whereas, the questions in pages 25 and 26 were repeated those in pages 23 - 24 were missing.

(e) Wrong answers (in the key answers) had been provided against 7 questions, namely- Question No. 45, 53, 167, 48, 15, 90 and 144 of Booklet - B series (for instance). T