Courts should be reluctant to interfere in academic matters, but they may intervene when there are apparent errors and mistakes that prejudice the fairness of an examination and affect the interests of a large number of students.

1. - Petitioner, Durga Lal Saini, appeared in the Secondary School Examination conducted by the Board of Secondary Education Rajasthan. Ajmer (herein-after referred to as the Board'), in 1988. The petitioner has made grievance in the writ petition regarding Compulsory English, First paper-'Comprehension' and 'Vocabulary', carrying 50 marks in total, section-A deals with the vocabulary, having 15 marks whereas Section-B is in regard to 'comprehension', carries 35 marks. This paper is almost on objective type, and after answering the paper, it is collected back by the Invigilators. The petitioner, in his writ petition has quoted passage from the paper (unseen passage), on the basis of which ten questions from Serial No. 57 to 67 were asked, and each question was allotted one mark. Petitioner has complained that the aforesaid passage comprised of many difficult words' like 'retrenchment', 'compensation', 'disputes', 'unionisation', 'earth-moving', winds' etc. which are beyond the range of secondary school students' vocabulary, they being very highly technical words, not mentioned in the book 'List of Essential Words and Structures' for Secondary School Classes (English Compulsory), issued by the Board and the meaning of these words could not be followed and understood by the petitioner and other like students, who appeared for the aforesaid examination Petitioner has also pointed out some mistakes in the passage regarding the construction of sentence and phrases.

2. It has further been pointed out that Question Nos. 58 and 65 are not happily worded and there are some grammatical composition mistakes which created confusion in the minds of the students.

3. Petitioner has also quoted a passage from the "Course Reader" appearing in the aforesaid paper on which Question Nos. 41 to 49 are based. He has submitted that Question Nos. 43 and 44 are not happily worded; there is mistake in the construction of the sentence which creates confusion in the minds of the examinees. He has further submitted that answers to Question Nos. 46 and 49 are not available in the said passage i.e. beyond the passage quoted to the paper.

4. Petitioner has further stated that Question No. 50 also does not have its answer in passage-A on which it is based; so also question No. 53 is not very clear and because of wrong construction of sentence, the students have been misled, and so also Question No. 53 based on passage 'C'.

5. Petitioner's counsel has therefore submitted that in view of the mistakes and anamolies in the question paper, the students are likely to suffer adversely and they will not get marks as they ought to have obtained and their career will be prejudiced,

6. This writ petition was filed in this Court on 6.6.1988 and it came up before me on 8th June, 1988. Notices of three days' duration were ordered to be issued to the Board as to why the writ petition should not be admitted and disposed of, Meanwhile, it was directed that the result of the examination should not be declared. It was listed for admission and final disposal on 13.6 88.

7. The Board has filed reply to the show cause notice to which a rejoinder has also been filed by the petitioner. Arguments were heard on 13th June, 1988 as also on 14.6.88.

8. The Board, in its reply. has taken some preliminary objections viz., that the writ petition should be dismissed on account of delay as the examinations for the paper in question took place on 24th March, 1988 and nearly 3.4. lacs students have appeared in the said examination but none of the students have made any grievance, whatsoever, of any nature, with regard to the said paper. Nor even the petitioner has brought to the notice of the Board about those alleged mistakes in the question paper and just on the eve of declaration of the result of examination, this writ petition has been filed. It has further been objected on behalf of the Board that the present writ petition cannot be said to be public interest litigation or cannot be said