The court emphasized the need for restraint in challenging key answers and the exercise of jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Constitution of India in recruitment disputes.

JUDGMENT

(Prayer: Writ Appeals have been filed under Section 15 of Letter of Patent, to allow the above Writ Appeal by setting aside the order passed by this Court in W.P.No.27694 of 2017, dated 26.06.2018.)

Common Judgment:

D. Bharatha Chakravarthy, J.

1. These Writ Appeals are filed against the order of the learned Single Judge, dated 26.06.2018, in and by which, the Writ Petitions filed by the respective respondents were allowed by the learned Judge by directing the respondents to award two marks for question Nos.34 and 93 to the Writ Petitioners and since after awarding the said two marks, the Writ Petitioners fall within the cut off marks in respect of their communal categories, directing the appellants to call them for certificate verification.

2. As a matter of fact, the order of the learned Judge is dated 26.06.2018 and these appeals were filed along with the delay of 278 days which was dismissed by this Court, against which, the appellants herein approached the Hon'ble Supreme Court of India by way of S.L.P (C) Nos.25262 to 25271 of 2019 and by an order, dated 03.02.2022, the Hon'ble Supreme Court of India set aside Order, condoned the delay and directed these appeals to be disposed off as expeditiously as possible after the parties record their presence, in any case, within three months from the date of the order of the Hon'ble Supreme Court of India. However, thereafter, the matters came up for admission before this Court on 26.09.2022 and even on the date of admission, the learned Senior Counsel, appearing for the respondents, was ready to get along with the matter. But, however, this Court recorded the fact that the learned Counsel accepted notice and posted the matter for filing Vakalath and for hearing the appeals on 29.09.2022. Thereafter, on 29.09.2022, this Court heard Mr.R.Neelakandan, the learned Additional Advocate General for the appellants and Mrs.Nalini Chidambaram, the learned Senior Counsel for the respondents/writ petitioners.

3. The brief facts, leading to filing of the present Writ Appeals are as follows:-

The appellants, through the second appellant, Teachers Recruitment Board, issued an advertisement in Advertisement No.3 of 2017, dated 09.05.2017 for filling up of Post-Graduate Assistants/Physical Education Directors Grade-I in the scale of pay of Rs.9,900/- - 34,800/- + G.P. Rs.4,800/- by way of direct recruitment in the various subjects in all totaling to 1663 vacancies. The Writ Petitioners, being qualified in the subject of English, applied for the post and appeared for the written examination. The written examination was conducted on 02.07.2017 and the tentative key answers were published on 19.07.2017. The last date for submitting objections for the key answers expired on 25.07.2017. All the objections received from the candidates were duly considered by the expert committee constituted by the second appellant, Teachers Recruitment Board and accordingly, final key answers were published and the consequential results were also published on 11.08.2017. The provisional list of selected candidates was thereafter published on 12.09.2017. Since all the respondents/writ petitioners fell short of either one or two marks than the cut-off marks for their respective communal category, they were not called for certificate verification. Therefore, pointing out errors either in the questions/ key answers in respect of five questions i.e., question Nos.6, 23, 25, 34 and 93 in question set - A in the examination, Writ Petitions were filed for a Mandamus to award one mark each to the said five questions and consequently to direct the respondents/Writ Petitioners to be appointed in the post of Post Graduate Assistants.

4. The Writ Petitions were resisted by the respondents by filing a counter affidavit. It is the case of the respondents that the tentative key answers were published in the website on 19.07.2017 and the objections were called for to the tentative key answers with relevant proof of authority on or