Limited scope of judicial review in matters of competitive examination and the court's reluctance to substitute its views for that of the experts.

ORDER :

1. Common questions of facts and law are involved in these petitions, hence both the petitions have been heard and are being decided together by a common judgment.

2. Respondent-Himachal Pradesh Staff Selection Commission (for short ‘HPSSC’) issued Advertisement No. 36-3/2020 inviting online applications for direct recruitment of various categories of posts mentioned therein, which included the posts of Junior Engineer (Civil) against Post Code 826 for Himachal Pradesh State Electricity Board Ltd.

3. Petitioners in both the petitions applied for the above noted posts and appeared in the written objective test held on 11.4.2021. The HPSSC circulated provisional answer key after the conduct of written objective test, calling upon the candidates to submit their objections on or before 23.4.2021.

4. Petitioners herein allege that they submitted their respective objections, to the provisional answer key, circulated by the HPSSC, but their objections have not been rightly considered and consequently they have not found place in the list of 119 selected candidates whose names have been declared vide notification dated 25.8.2021.

5. Petitioners have prayed for directions to HPSSC to re-assess their objections and to grant them marks by correcting the answer key accordingly. Quashing of notification dated 25.8.2021 has also been sought.

6. The counselling for final selection of candidates for 39 posts of Junior Engineer (Civil) in Himachal Pradesh State Electricity Board Ltd. (for short ‘HPSEBL’) has been scheduled to be held on 8.9.2021. Keeping in view the urgency in the matter, on 02.09.2021 and 03.09.2021, this Court passed the orders in respective petitions of petitioners directing the HPSSC to file reply/instructions on 07.09.2021.

7. Today, the HPSSC has submitted written instructions. Specific stand taken by it is that in response to the objections invited to the provisional answer key, the petitioner Upanshu Sharma in CWP No. 4999 of 2021 did not submit his objections within prescribed seven days, whereas, the objections of petitioner Vikas Chaudhary in CWP No. 5027 of 2021 were received within time. Besides petitioners, many other candidates had submitted their objections. All such objections were referred to a panel of experts in accordance with Condition No. 14 (iii) of the advertisement. After evaluation by the expert panel, certain answers were corrected and the final answer key was published.

8. Condition No. 14 (iii) of the advertisement reads as under:

“14.(iii) The provisional answer key of each Written Screening Test (Objective Type) will be uploaded on the official website after the freezing of the answer sheets of the candidates for calling objections from the candidates. Seven day's time shall be given for inviting objections in the answer key, if any. The objections will be got vetted through an expert panel and the result will be finalized as per the revised answer key.”

9. We have heard learned counsel for the parties and have also gone through the records.

10. Petitioner in CWP No. 4999 of 2021 had objected to nine answers in the provisional answer key and as per the instructions submitted by the HPSSC, six answers were corrected after evaluation by expert panel. Petitioner in CWP No. 5027 of 2021 had also raised nine objections, out of which, four were upheld. Despite the corrections in the answer key, as noted above, petitioners have remained unsuccessful.

11. Once, the objections submitted by petitioners to the provisional answer key have been considered by a panel of experts, this Court in exercise of its jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Constitution of India, will not venture to impose its own opinion.

12. The powers of this Court to have opinion different to that of the experts, in the matter of evaluation of answers in competitive examination, is well defined. In this context, reference can be made to the judgment passed by the Hon'ble Supreme Court in Maharashtra State Board of Secondary and Higher Sec