JUDGMENT :

With consent of the parties, hearing of the matter has been done through video conferencing and there is no complaint whatsoever regarding audio and visual quality.

2. The instant writ petition has been filed under Article 226 of the Constitution of India wherein the judgment dated 18th October, 2019 passed in O.A./051/00814/2018 by the learned Central Administrative Tribunal has been assailed whereby and whereunder the Original Application filed by the writ petitioner has been dismissed.

3. The brief facts of the case, as per the pleadings made in the Original Application, which are required to be enumerated herein, read under as:

The writ petitioner while working under the Indian Railway made an application in pursuance to notification dated 14.10.2017 issued by respondents-South Eastern Railway by which the applications were invited for General Departmental Competitive Examination (GDCE) and participated in the selection process including Online written test held on 09.12.2017, the result of which was declared on 19.02.2018 but due to lower position in the merit list, he could not have been selected.

The writ petitioner has raised the grievance by filing Original Application before the Central Administrative Tribunal to the effect that on the date of On-line written examination he became disturbed due to defective computer provided to him and during the entire period of examination his computer was not functioning well due to which, time was wasted, and even on complaint made by him nothing has been done by the Invigilator. Lastly, when 25 minutes time were left, he started to answer the questions but due to frustration he could only answer 47 questions correctly and answered 25 questions wrong and further 28 questions were left blank; and thereby he could score 39.08 marks. Thereafter, he appeared in the Ability Test, which is mandatory for Assistant Station Master (ASM) category and scored 20.08 marks and as such his total marks stood at 47.54 but since he could not obtain marks above the cut-off marks, hence he was not called for further stage of selection.

His contention before the Tribunal was that he could not answer correctly due to defective computer set provided to him in the On-line written examination and therefore, interference ought to have been shown by the Tribunal upon the respondents to provide grace marks so that he be selected and appointed to the post in question.

On the other hand, the case of the respondent-Railway before the Tribunal was that the writ petitioner appeared in the written examination on 09.12.2017, result of which was published on 19.02.2018. So far complaint made by the writ petitioner dated 16.12.2017 is concerned, it was submitted before the Tribunal that no compliant dated 16.12.2017 was received in the office of the respondents-Railway and only complaint received by the respondent is dated 16.12.2018, which is after the period of about more than a year that too when the writ petitioner came to know about being unsuccessful in the examination then he has tried to make out a case by making representation dated 16.12.2018 which was not a fit ground to show interference by the Tribunal. It was further submitted that case of the petitioner was considered on merit and when it was found that he had secured lesser marks than that of last selected candidate, he was declared to be unsuccessful candidate.

The Tribunal, after taking into consideration the rival submissions, has passed the impugned order dismissing the Original Application, which is the subject matter of present writ petition.

4. Mrs. M.M. Pal, learned senior counsel being assisted by Mrs. Leena Mukherjee, learned counsel for the petitioner has submitted that the Tribunal has not appreciated the fact about mal-functioning of the computer set provided to the writ petitioner in the examination hall for On-line written examination. It has further not been appreciated by the Tribunal that due to defective computer the writ petitio