Judicial interference in examination results is limited to clear errors, supporting the principle that the opinion of expert committees prevails unless demonstrably incorrect.

JUDGMENT :

SANJEEV PRAKASH SHARMA, ACJ.

1. This order shall govern disposal of the aforesaid intra-court appeals.

2. All the above mentioned appeals are arising out of the same judgment dated 07.06.2023 passed by the learned Single Judge. In view of the reasons mentioned in the applications under Section 5 of the Limitation Act for condonation of delay filed in SAW Nos.220/2024, 222/2024, 223/2024, 225/2024, 227/2024, 240/2024, 321/2024 & 323/2024, same are allowed. The delay caused in filing the aforesaid appeals is hereby condoned and the special appeals are taken up together for consideration jointly.

3. All the writ petitions were involving same set of facts and raising the same issue i.e. challenge given to the final answer key dated 29.07.2022 issued by the Selection Board. Thus, the facts of the lead case being D.B. Special Appeal Writ No. 677/2023 are taken into consideration for deciding the present batch of Special Appeal Writs.

4. D.B. Special Appeal Writ No. 677/2023 (Rajasthan Staff Selection Board vs. Kushal Bhardwaj & others) arises out of Judgment dated 07.06.2023 passed by learned Single Judge whereby, the learned Single Judge by a common judgment has decided a batch of 70 writ petitions including the lead case i.e. Writ Petition No.11616/2022 (Kushal Bhardwaj vs. State of Rajasthan & others).

5. By the judgment dated 07.06.2023, learned Single Judge has partly allowed the writ petitions preferred by the writ petitioners and inter alia issued the directions to the appellant-Rajasthan Staff Selection Board (hereinafter referred to as ‘Selection Board’) to re-send the Question Nos. 132 & 144 to the Expert Committee for re-assessment/re-evaluation of the answers in view of the text material referred by the petitioners including the standard books of the Board of Secondary Education, Rajasthan and Government publications of Rajasthan Hindi Granth Academy etc. and further directed that if the answer previously suggested in the model answer-key dated 13.07.2022 is also found correct then, in that eventuality, both questions be deleted by the Selection Board. Learned Single Judge has further directed that in such eventuality the fresh merit list be accordingly prepared and the appointments be given on the basis of fresh merit-list upon the unfilled posts of Village Development Officer (hereinafter referred as “V.D.O.”) while saving the candidature of the candidates already appointed.

6. The facts of the case pleaded in the lead case are that :

6.1 By Advertisement No. 04/2021 dated 06.09.2021, applications were invited for appointment on 5396 vacancies of the V.D.O. by way of direct recruitment under the Rajasthan Panchayati Raj Rules, 1996 (hereinafter referred as “Rules of 1996”).

6.2 The candidates who were party to the writ petitions were shortlisted after clearing the preliminary examination and appeared in the main examination held on 09.07.2022. The main examination consisted of 160 multiple-choice questions. The marking scheme included negative marking i.e. each correct answer was to be awarded with 1.25 marks, while 1/3rd of a mark was to be deducted for every incorrect answer.

6.3 The model answer-key of the master question paper of was published on 13.07.2022 and thereby, online objections were invited with supporting material. The objections so received were considered by the expert committee and final answer-ke